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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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Shelf 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 

























0 . 14. PRICE , 25 CENTS. Yearly Subscription, $3.00. October, 1889. 

UBLISHED MONTHLY. Entered at the New York Post-Office as second-class matter. 


Won on the 


1EJ 


10VELS 


By MRS. M. C. WILLIAMS. 





* ' 








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* 






A NOVEL. 


By MRS. M. C. WILLIAMS. 



NEW YORK: 

A. L. BURT, PUBLISHER. 


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. N N 




br S 


Copyright 1889, by a. L. Burt. 


CHAPTER I. 

“ GODFREY’S CORDIAL.'* 

That was what she called him — Godfrey’s Cordial. 
Miss Travers had a trick of giving people the most 
absurd aliases. Why, even the Rev. Arthur Milk- 
way, to whom the younger half of his feminine 
hearers were, metaphorically, on their knees, figured 
in her category as “ The Saints’ Delight,” and no 
less a personage than Major Ellis, of the High Mills, 
a proprietor equally and oppressively rich and loud, 
was there set down as “Jupiter Tonans.” She even 
revenged herself on the sponsors who doomed her to 
bear through life the weighty name of Constance 
Adelaide Travers, by dubbing herself “ The Cat” — 
an appellation which some, who envied her supple 
grace of motion or had felt the sting of her lancet- 
edged witticisms, were not slow to declare was most 
fitly expressive of its bearer. 

You may be sure, though, the allegation did not 
trouble her, who equally by nature and habit defied 
“They say” and all his works, and held evenly her 
own velvet-footed way over social peaks and 
morasses, where her detractors, had they dared to 
follow, would have fallen on rocks or floundered 
hopeless in the mire. 

So it is no wonder that John Sumner, Esq., despite 
his stateliness of name and manner, his perfection 
of courtesy and pedigree, his wealth of beard and 

5 


6 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


gold, fared no better than the rest. Had Miss Trav- 
ers known exactly all the facts in the case, it is possi- 
ble she might have chosen for him a soubriquet rather 
more classic than that of the popular soother of our 
infancy ; but the fact was, the gentleman came to 
her knowledge somewhat earlier than to her sight 
— he being the latest acquisition in friendship of her 
cousin Godfrey Lane — and snubbing Godfrey’s en- 
thusiasms was a part of Miss Travers’s religion. In 
general, she enjoyed the process, and he being a 
thoroughly good fellow, and, since the days of her 
motherless babyhood, his cousin’s especial cham- 
pion, was more than tolerant of it, in the knowledge 
that often Laide’s incisive raillery had saved him 
from substantial loss — or what was infinitely worse, 
the conviction of having made himself an ass. 

About Mr. Sumner, however, they came so near a 
quarrel that it was somewhat a strain upon even Miss 
Travers’s audacity to persist in the use of the obnox- 
ious epithet; all the same she did persist, so God- 
frey never rested until he got his friend’s promise to 
come to Eastbrook for three weeks of shooting — for 
he was well assured that Mr. Sumner had but to 
come and be seen, in order to conquer the good 
opinion of this most perverse and piquant of woman- 
kind ; and had even a shadowy hope that in him she 
might find not merely a foeman worthy of her steel, 
but also a knightly and chivalrous victor. Godfrey’s 
mother was born a Travers, and he had quite as 
much pride in the Travers name and fame as though 
he himself bore it — as indeed he half wished he did, 
for Eastbrook, originally a grant in the mid-western 


GODFREY'S CORDIAL 


7 


wilderness to Captain Lionel Travers of the Conti- 
nental army, had been bequeathed by Lionel, third 
of that name, to his beloved and only nephew God- 
frey Lane, upon condition that the testator’s 
daughter, Laide Travers, should have, for so long as 
she chose to claim it, a home within its walls. 

At first the condition hurt Godfrey sorely. His 
uncle ought surely to have known that while he had 
home or heart Laide would be sheltered in its 
warmest recesses, but after a while he saw the wis- 
dom of what he had almost resented, for his father’s 
death followed close upon his uncle’s and his step- 
mother. The fade remnant of an incapable beauty 
was so held in hand by her imperious daughter, the 
fruit of a former marriage, that Laide’s home with 
them might have been made most uncomfortable, had 
her tenure of it been less undeniable. True, he as 
undisputed possessor might have sent away any 
disturbing element, but riddance of the mother meant 
the taking away of the winsome little half-sister, 
who was Laide’s pet no less than his own. Besides, 
Mrs. Lane had only her jointure upon which to main- 
tain herself, elder daughter, and an orphan niece, 
and Godfrey, equally the soul of chivalrous pity and 
generosity, could not shut them from his hospitality, 
howsoever much they might abuse it. 

So, upon Mr. Summer’s coming, the Quadrilateral — 
to which grim bit of European armament nobody 
but Miss Travers would have dared liken four ac- 
knowledged belles — instantly put itself upon a war- 
footing. Marion Lane, the youngest of them, all 
in full grace and glory of sweet seventeen, braided 


8 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


roses in her long, thick hair, and spent an hour de- 
ciding between her three best dresses. Lucia Fair, 
Mrs. Lane’s daughter, a creamy blonde, with the 
eyes of a dove and the temper of a mule, made her- 
self a Pompadour picture with her blue gown and 
wealth of pale pink blossoms, while Cecil Wren, the 
niece, a musical genius, wrapped in a misty mid- 
night robe, established her embroidery frame con- 
veniently near the piano, and Laide Travers, in 
silver silk, without one dash of color, looked the 
ghost of a cloudy day, and read the last new novel 
as intelligently as though she had no sense of the 
impending crisis — which, in corporeal shape of Mr. 
John Sumner, was making itself presentable in the 
guest chamber just above her head — while Godfrey, 
in his hospitable eagerness to assist or else to ex- 
press his otherwise inexpressible delight, seemed, if 
one might trust his hearing, to be performing an en- 
tirely new pattern of war-dance. It ceased presently, 
and then, after a provokingly long interval of talk, 
steps came toward the parlor — Godfrey’s quick foot- 
falls making a sort of rat-tat accompaniment to a 
more ponderous tread. 

“ Here at last, mother. Mr. Sumner, Mrs. Lane;” 
and a delicate, half-invalid hand was cordially 
shaken. “ Miss Fair, Miss Wren, my little sister 

Marion and my cousin, Miss Tra Why, where is 

Laide ?” and Godfrey paused in angry bewilderment, 
while a deep obeisance of a big blonde head did due 
homage to the younger feminine element, and the 
“swish” of a silken skirt around the piazza-angle told 
that just then Miss Travers had no mind to share in 


GODFREY'S CORDIAL." 


9 

it. Miss Fair’s slow thought was, “ He must be 
stingy, for he is nothing like so well dressed as 
Major Ellis.” Miss Wren was too tremulous to be 
critical, and saucy Marion, running out a few minutes 
later to tell Miss Travers that dinner was served, 
executed un pas seal , and mock-tragically cried, 
“O ! Laide ! I had pictured him so handsome — and 
he is only huge — and \ iborit you catch it from God- 
frey for running away ? — but if he had just said ‘ Miss 
Travers’, without stopping, it would have been all 
right, for Mr. Sumner’s bow might just as well have 
included your chair, and he was so confused by 
meeting such a lot of us he could not possibly have 
found out that there was no woman in it.” 

“Yes,” Laide said, laughing ; “the presence of 
three younger and prettier women might reasonably 
make a man oblivious of me. Run along, dear. I 
want no dinner, or if I do I know the way to the 
pantry; and tell Godfrey to get his lion to true roar- 
ing pitch, as, after I finish my book, I am coming 
down,” of which message Miss Marion, who had a 
very genuine affection for her brother’s cousin, char- 
itably manufactured a polite excuse of indisposition, 
with the hope of improvement in the evening, which, 
delivered in her most truth-telling manner, so mol- 
lified Godfrey that he inwardly called himself names 
for his prior misjudgment of Laide, “ the best fellow 
that ever a girl was, and a whole team to keep 
things going. If she can’t come down after a while, 
I’m afraid John will find things here rather slow.” 

Things — under the surface — were rather slow when 
Laide, yet more grayly ghost-like in the lamplight, 


10 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


glided into the parlor. Outwardly it was gay 
enough. Marion at the piano warbling love-ditties 
with accompaniments equally fearful and wonderful, 
and finding therein the double gratification of 
“ blocking Cecil’s game” and intensifying the infatu- 
ation of her own latest captive, C. Evelyn, Esq., 
Cecil and Godfrey animatedly discussing something 
of no earthly interest to either, while Mr. Sumner 
and Miss Fair, who had both a constitutional 
inability of “ making talk,” went through the motions 
of a game of chess; the which solemnity Miss Lucia, 
as much as possible, enlivened by periodical peals of 
a laugh whose silveriness was as unexceptionable as 
its appropriateness was doubtful. Laide was not 
slow to perceive the atmosphere of cross-purposes, 
and lacking a great deal of being a model young 
woman, had, I very much fear, a somewhat malicious 
enjoyment of it. Certainly she did nothing to mend 
matters, and even when Godfrey, at last grown 
desperate, began to extol the Rev. Mr. Milkway’s 
oratory and saintliness, the which conversational red 
flag had never hitherto failed to rouse his cousin’s ire 
and send her ready tongue beyond the level of con- 
ventional commonplace, remained decorously dull as 
Miss Fair herself. “I think Laide was a terrapin 
before she was a woman, and has gotten back her 
shell for this night only,” Marion said, aside to Mr. 
Evelyn, betwixt snatches of the latest popular 
melody ; “and Mr. Sumner’s nickname is a full 
vindication of her intuitive perception. All the 
drowsy syrups in the world wouldn’t put me to sleep 
so effectually as the tete-a-tete Lucia has been 
enjoying.” 


“GODFREY'S CORDIAL. 


11 


Mr. Evelyn, who was a well-bred youth, just now 
very much enfant dn maison, and an ardent though 
respectfully distant admirer of Miss Travers’ peculiar 
cleverness, laughed aloud at Miss Marion’s frank 
speech, and vow'ed to himself to see more of the game 
just then beginning, and, if possible, what was under 
the cards. To this end he led that lady over to the 
opposite group, begging that they, callow young- 
lings, might be no longer debarred from silently 
absorbing the wisdom of their elders. “ I thought 
sponge grew only in deep water,” Laide said, at 
which faint glimmer of herself the young people 
laughed. Godfrey’s face perceptibly shortened; 
Miss Fair looked as though she esteemed it apiece 
of impertinence altogether beside the question, and 
Mr. Sumner as though he were particularly engaged 
in deep sea-soundings; Miss Wren alone remained 
impassive. It was eleven o’clock, and she had sunk 
from expectance to apathy. Nobody, she thought, 
would ask her to play, and she had the sense to 
know that “ nothing if not musical ” exactly summed 
her case. Though far too well-bred for open feud 
with any inmate of the house she called home, Laide 
did not like her, and was seldom at the pains of 
going beyond indifferent courtesy towards her, but 
to-night the stolid face awoke a sort of wondering 
pity for the one talent hidden in a napkin ; so she 
said with almost a caressing accent, “ Cecil, please 
come play for me. These self-sufficient people will 
neither miss nor hear us.” 

For a minute the flush of surprise made Miss Wren 
almost handsome, and for twice that space her touch 


12 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


had a most unusual sort of tremor ; then the chords 
rang grandly out, now wildly fitful, now weirdly 
clear, rising with the sweep of west winds to the 
clangor of drum and trumpet, falling, as night-shad- 
ows fall, to the softness of a baby’s breath, or patter 
of August rain. Always a wonderful improvisatrice, 
to-night Miss Wren seemed fairly inspired. On, on, 
without break or pause, the flood of melody rolled. 
When, at length, it ceased, Mr. Sumner, who, after 
the first start of surprise, had sat as though spell- 
bound, intercepted the performer as she would have 
made her exit sans ceremonie , with, “You must say 
‘ good-night’ to me — and do you often play like 
that ?” 

“ Why ? are you so very tired ?” 

“‘Tired!’ I could hear you forever and with a 
low bow her hands were released. Marion laughed 
behind her fan at the “private theatricals,” and 
Laide Travers, with half-shut eyes, but, for all that, 
intensely wide awake, thought : “ I have given Cecil 
a point in the game — and I wonder if I can afford 

it r 


CHAPTER II. 

LA REINE L’AMUSE. 

Mr. Godfrey Lane, when his friend had been three 
days domiciled at Eastbrook, found himself in high 
bad humor. Things certainly did go contrary with 
him. To begin with, a tidal wave of colored revival- 
ism had just set in ; by consequence cotton fields, 
white unto harvest, were ruinously neglected. Then 
“ Marse Go’frey” himself was “ caught on the jury,” 
and the flinty-hearted judge summarily refused to 
let him off. Then the devil was in the women — 
mind, I am strictly quoting Mr. Lane’s mental 
phraseology — Marion most discourteously allowed 
young Evelyn to monopolize her time, thereby let- 
ting Lucia’s beauty and Cecil’s music each be fairly 
focused upon Mr. Sumner; and, worse than all — the 
crown and cap-sheaf of misery — Laide clung to her 
shell, and for three whole days had spoken, acted, 
even looked, exactly like an ordinary woman. He 
had a great mind to beg John’s company upon his 
own enforced expedition ; but that whole-dead 
court house would be no end of a bore to one so 
accustomed to life in all about him. Besides, it was 
a shame not to be afield these late September days, 
breathing air like wine, and rustling through crisp 
grass and early fallen leaves. No ; better leave him 
to amuse himself with the partridges. He was a fair 
shot, and Rex, the dog — though he certainly had 
13 


14 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


more intelligence than nine in ten who sat there — 
was happily exempt from jury service. Confound 
old Tieman’s will. Such a bundle of crotchets had 
no business ever making one — especially one that 
dissatisfied everybody, and set the county pretty 
well by the ears. He, Godfrey Lane, was eminently 
a man of peace, and would cheerfully pay ten times 
the fine his absence would occasion — only the ab- 
sence would be construed as moral cowardice — the 
which imputation Mr. Lane had no mind to suffer, 
wherefore he straightway set forth upon his discon- 
solate way. 

An hour later Mr. Sumner, coming down with 
intent to goa-birding, found himself most unexpect- 
edly — and truth constrains me to add embarrassingly 
— possessed of a companion in the person of Miss 
Travers, who entirely biengante et habile , and sitting 
her perfect horse “ Ingle,” as that animal deserved, 
was, to my thinking, an object that any man might 
well love to look on, wherefore I must set down Mr. 
Sumner’s sense that his sport was going to be spoiled 
by her presence, as a piece of eminent bad taste. 
She leaned slightly forward, one hand caressing 
Ingle’s neck lightly, as the yellow leaves fell down 
upon the sward, and said, as Mr. Sumner sprang to 
his saddle : 

“ F° r want of better, you must let me do the 
honors of the hunting-field. Alone I fear you would 
have poor sport. Eastbrook birds are so peculiar; 
but I know all their haunts.” 

“How does that happen?” said Mr, Sumner, 
chiefly for the sake of saying something, as, in* 


LA REINE V AMUSE. 


15 


deed, I believe at least one-half our vocal breath is 
spent. 

“ Oh ! I make friends with them in my walks and 
rides. They hardly stir for my coming unless Rex 
is with me. He will flush them spite of my best 
endeavors. Naughty fellow, bad dog;” but the tone 
belied the spoken censure, and the shaggy, bright- 
eyed setter, who at sound of his name leaped to the 
horse’s withers, got more than one pat from the small 
hand he loved, while Mr. Sumner silently fumbled 
with the sling of his gun, and seemed to study the 
hoof-marks in the road. Presently Laide said, “ You 
look as if you thought it very treacherous thus to be- 
tray my summer friends to your murderous mercies.” 

“ I — I hadn’t thought of it,” said the gentleman 
in whose slower consciousness the feeling had not 
yet taken shape as an idea. 

“ Well, it is,” she said imperturbably, “but I love 
sport. My father was a mighty hunter, and taught 
me to handle a gun before I was ten years old, and 
the taste grows with my years.” 

“ It is a very unusual one for a lady,” was Mr. 
Sumner’s comment. 

“ And a very unfeminine one your tone implies,” 
Miss Travers made answer, “but so are many other 
sensible things. Now let’s proceed to business. Give 
me my gun, Jerry, and let down these bars. The pea- 
fields are our best chance for a good morning’s work.” 

Jerry, a saddle-colored individual of fifteen or 
thereabout, “ Marse Go’frey’s own boy,” and “ de 
triflin’is’ nigger ’pon top t’ yearth,” according to the 
ebony chief of the Eastbrook staff, surrendered the 


16 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


weapon most reluctantly. Up to this time he had 
indulged a lively hope that “ Mi-S-Laidy” ’d rather 
talk ter dat strange man, ’an ter shoot,” in which 
event he (Jerry) remaining custodian of the fowling- 
piece, might astonish the kitchen audience with 
stories of deadly aim, and exhibit the game-bags’ 
contents as very much due to his own huntsman’s 
prowess, but alack ! for such visioned glories, the 
transfer was made in full view of the whole field 
gang, who would be only too glad to puncture his 
balloon-like statements. Jerry felt to the full that 
he was hardly dealt with, when better things might 
so easily have befallen. However, there was nothing 
for it, but obedience and a rueful face; so the bars 
were let down, and Ingle and Fire Fly picked their 
dainty way over the tangled pea- vines, half stopping 
now and then for a nibble at great brown corn- 
shocks or bits of sweet fresh grass. Game was 
fairly abundant, and ere an hour went by Mr. Sum- 
ner was fain to acknowledge to himself that Miss 
Travers had not taken upon herself a task of which 
she knew nothing, but on the contrary, one that 
made manifest thorough acquaintance with the very 
highest style of sportsmanship and courtesy. Indeed, 
it is questionable if Godfrey himself could have so 
left to his guest the cream of the shooting without 
any appearance of self-denial. And she was no bad 
shot either. The silver mounted double-barrel, that 
was Jerry’s greatest temptation to covetousness, 
rarely spoke without effect, and more than once 
dropped a bird that had got scatheless away from Mr. 
Sumner’s gold-bedizened breech-loader. 


LA REINE V AMUSE. 


17 


“ Do you hunt often ? I want practice,” that gen- 
tleman interrogatively remarked, upon the second 
repetition of the above-described performance. 

Laide did not smile in answering, “ whenever the 
spirit moves me,” and had discretion enough to miss 
the next quarry, and so to manoeuvre Rex, who was 
certainly inclined to show her a most discriminat- 
ing partiality, that Mr. Sumner had thereafter scant 
occasion or excuse for waste of ammunition. Poor 
Jerry ! To him it was a worse-than-Barmecide feast, 
and as he toiled through rank grass, or athwart 
briery hedgerows, or got his crinkly mane a crown 
of thorns with burs, he evolved from his outer con- 
sciousness several vividly-concrete images of the 
pains of perdition, which had that night surprising 
effect at the “ ’vival,” where Jerry, as being a pecu- 
liarly “ bright convert,” had been at once made an ex- 
horter. The last bird, being only winged, gave him 
a long and breathless chase. “ Here ’e is. Dun 
cotched at las, Miss Laidy,” he cried, with sauc- 
ery eyes, while those of his quivering victim were 
painfully bright with appeal. Miss Travers reined 
Ingle almost upon her haunches, so sharply did she 
turn away, saying, as she did so, “Kill it, you idiot, 
and be quick,” hearing which, Mr. Sumner, in his 
own mind, decided that she had a bad temper and 
lost control of it for a trifle — though he did her the 
justice to admit that she made no vicarious sufferers 
therefrom, but showed him all along the homeward 
route a sunnily careless good humor. At Eastbrook 
porch he would have lifted her from the saddle, but 
she waved him aside, and slipping on to the step- 


18 THE HOMESTRETCH 

ping-stone, ran lightly thence to the wide stairway, 
up which she disappeared, while Mr. Sumner went 
leisurely indoors, with a sense of having been some- 
how defrauded — and fully impressed that albeit he 
had heard a great deal of this same Laide Travers, 
the half had not by any means been told him. 

“And how has your day gone, old fellow?” Mr. 
Lane anxiously asked, after he had eased his some- 
what explosive nature by various and sundry ana- 
themas against lawyers and litigants. 

“ Pretty well — especially the afternoon, when 
Miss Wren played for me two hours.” 

“Ah!” — the inflection was not approval — “and 
what of the morning !” 

“Miss Travers took me hunting — and beat me 
shooting into the bargain,” in a peculiarly unremark- 
able tone. 

“The devil !!!!!!” Mr. Lane thought , but wise- 
ly smothered it to an inarticulate rumble, and then 
passed without more ado in search of his women- 
kind, whom he at length found clustered about the 
laden grape-vine shading the south porch. Without 
finesse or hesitation he began: “ See here, Laide ; 
how did you happen to go hunting to-day? Did 
Mr. Sumner ask you ?” 

Miss Travers stood poised upon the topmost rail, 
her hands above her head, and filled with fair rich 
clusters, that had so far scaped spoiling fingers. 
She did not turn at her cousin s speech, but answered 
over her shoulder, “ No. That, like my other good 
deeds, sprang purely from my own abundant char- 
ity.” 


LA RE TILE V AMUSE. 


19 


“ ‘ Good deeds !’” — with rising wrath ; “ I wonder 
what they are — unless you count as such trying to 
make a fool of every man you meet ; but you need 
not hope to win any sensible man’s regard by losing 
his respect — and let me tell you your freak has low- 
ered you twenty per cent, in Mr. Sumner’s estima- 
tion.” 

“Indeed ! Has he taken the trouble to make an 
estimate and tell you of it ?” Miss Travers’s voice 
was unmoved as her position. 

“ Not in words. His tone, though, showed that he 
believes you wilfully threw yourself at his head — 
and thinks it was rather clumsily done.” 

“ Laide doesn’t care what people believe about 
her,” Miss Fair said, with a giggle. 

“ No, dear. They are very welcome to believe the 
truth when they know it — even about my age — and 
I’m .two years older than yourself — and to think 
exactly what they choose of my performing ca- 
pacity, or any other absurd thing within the com- 
pass of their wits,” that lady returned in a purely 
silken tone. 

“ Laide, what did make you do it ? ” Conscious 
that he had been too angry, Godfrey grew almost 
pathetic. Marion essayed to speak, but Miss Travers, 
half-turning about, cheeks aflush, eyes agleam, slow 
purple rain from the crushed grapes in her fingers 
spotting and streaking her gold-colored gown, held 
the girl silent with a look, then fixed a steadfast 
gaze upon her cousin, and said, with even accent: 

“Why! to be sure, the ruling passion of my life — 
a wish to amuse myself.” 


20 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


Mr. Lane’s anger was of the short-lived species. 
Any concussion of his social atmosphere was to 
destroy it, so now he stepped forward to lift his late 
antagonist from her perch. “ No,” she said, “ I must 
have some more grapes. We are making a pyramid 
for the table;” then, after a minute or two of silence, 

“ Will you go to the court-house again to-morrow ? ” 
“ Yes — unfortunately. Don’t you pity me ? ” 

“ Will you stop at Dr. Ellenbrod’s and ask him, 
please, to send for me at his earliest convenience ?” 

“No, for I’ve a prejudice against helping bury 
people alive.” 

“Aunt Sarah, can you send me?” 

“ Now Laide.” Godfrey assumed a mingled air of 
expostulation and deep injury. “ Don’t talk that 
way. It’s the very crudest revenge you could take. 
I’d a right to be angry, because I love you so; but 
if you’ll only stay with us, I’ll hold my peace if the 
lot of you should propose to John before my face.” 

“Which isn’t likely,” put in Marion. “ Count me 
out at any rate; and oh ! you ought to be worse than 
ashamed of yourself for speaking so to Laide. No, 
I won’t ‘hush.’ He shall know the truth; she only 
went with your Mr. Sumner, because Rex, who, being 
a dog instead of a woman, is allowed to have his 
humors, wouldn’t stir without her. We tried for an 
hour to make him follow Jerry, but all to no purpose; 
not even guns and horses, that he generally gets wild 
over, would make him leave her. I begged Laide 
to go, and get that nightmare out of the house for a 
breathing space, and out of pure kindness to yoii she 
did it — and the return she’s met is enough to set 


LA HEINE L' AMUSE. 


21 


her tempers teeth on edge well on into eternity; but 
please, dear, don’t go to Dr. Ellenbrod’s. I’d as lief 
dwell in the pyramids of Egypt, with mummies for 
my company, as there.” 

Mr. Lane heard his sister’s exposition of mat- 
ters with a very changeful countenance, and at the 
close said hastily, “ Laide, I never felt quite so su- 
preme an idiot. Kiss me quick, and let me go and 
explain to John that it was all that villain Rex.” 

Miss Travers clung to her station, but said over 
her shoulder: “ If you ever name it to him, I’ll quit 
the house immediately. The tongues of men and 
angels wouldn’t convince a man against his own 
vanity” — besides, Mr. Sumner’s opinion doesn’t mat- 
ter, as I haven’t quite made up my mind to marry 
him out of hand.” 

Five minutes later that gentleman, coming out 
for a glimpse of sunset, without so much as a “ by 
your leave,” lifted Miss Travers to her proper lower 
level, and answered the defiant inquiry of her flash- 
ing eyes, with a cool “What are you going to do 
about it ? ” 

“Nothing,” she said, slowly dropping her lids, 
“except tell you that I am grateful for your imperti- 
nence, which has probably saved me a sprained 
ankle or a torn gown.” 

Heretofore Mr. Sumner had marveled not a little 
that this pale, gray-eyed, ordinary-looking woman, 
should be accounted, among men, a worker of 
charms; but looking now upon her shining eyes, and 
tremulous color, and tendrils of loosened light-brown 
hair, he began to feel that safety lay in distance. 


22 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


For all that, he evidently had no wish to avoid the 
danger, for, even when Miss Travers said, “Take 
care, my hand is stained,” he drew the small streaked 
fingers well on to a most immaculate coat-sleeve, 
and so holding them began a slow promenade. 
Beauty, like leaven, rarely fails to work — under 
favorable conditions. 


CHAPTER III. 

AS JERRY TOLD IT. 

The Eastbrook kitchen stood within fair ear-shot 
of the piazza’s south-west angle, and there Mr. 
Sumner and Miss Travers halted to listen to their 
henchman’s account of the morning. Things slowly 
progressed in the hands of Mammy Pauline and 
Uncle Ned, so the game-bag’s contents, with feath- 
ers still untouched, lay heaped on a rough shelf, and 
made the text of-Jerry’s sermon, which, delivered 
after the most approved manner of “ Big-’ickery 
Grove,” wrought wonder, if not conviction, in the 
minds of the very select audience. 

“ I tell yer dese yer pa’t’idges did worry me,” the 
orator began. “ Dis yere high-top ole rooster per- 
tickler. I shot ’im two times and den he runned 
under er corn-shock, er I wouldn’t nebber a cotched 
’im.” 

‘“Shot ’im’?” interposed Uncle Ned. “Whose 
gun you had? You sartain nebber went an’ took 
Marse Go’fr’y’s ? ” 

“I had bofe dem’s whar went,” was Jerry’s dis- 
dainful answer. “You reckon Miss Laidy gwine fix 
up dat way, and go out dar fer to hunt — er let dat ar 
man either ? Dey jes rode ’roun’ two free times, and 
looked fer birds, and shot two times tryin’ ter skeer 
um up, and ole Rex he wouldn’ go nowhar ’tall but 
right ’long o’ me; den Mi-s’Laidy say, ‘It’s very 

23 


24 


THE HOMESTRETCH 


warm, Mr. Sumner. Le’s go to the spring. Here, 
Jerry, you take my gun and kill some birds, so ’at 
they won’t laugh at us when we get home,’ and den 
I tole um if Mis’r Summertime ’d lend me his’n too, 
I’d git de bag full, an’ he ax me did I know how to 
manage it, an’ I tole ’im I dun shot wid Marse 
Go’frey’s a many time, an’ he say, ‘ What you gwine 
do wid two?’ and den I took an’ hung Mi-S’Laidy’s 
’roun’ my neck, an’ he laugh and say, ‘I never 
thought er dat,’ and den dey rode off down ter creek- 
bottom, and me an’ ole Rex jes got a’ter dem birds. 
You heared us, didn’t ye ? bang, bang, bang, all 
de time, an’ dat was jes me, by myse’f. Bimeby I 
got sorter tired er loadin’ dat ar little gun, and sot 
’im up ’gins’ er bramble bush, and den I tell yer 
I had some fun — jes kep’ a-pokin’ dat ar man’s 
ca’t’idges in dat gole tetch-hole, and uvery pop 
down come de bird. I nuver fotch home ha’f what 
I killed. Dey felled in weeds and briers whar I 
wa’ant gwine scratch myse’f gittin’ um out.” 

“How you come by all de cuckle-burs you brung 
home in dat wool o’ yourn, den ?” suspiciously from 
Mammy Pauline. 

“I hasn’t got no ‘wool’ — do you is — but I was 
gwine tell you ’bout dat. Presently one ole bird, 
sar, he ris up and flewed clean down ter whar der 
whi’ fokes wus, an’ I foller’d long a’ter him, an’ kep’ 
shootin’ all de time, an’ jes’ as ’e got ter de aidge 
er de woods, I broke bofe ’is wings, an’ he run hid 
in de middle uv de bigges’ sort uv er patch er cuckle- 
burs. Mi-S Laidy an Mis’r Summertime, dey wus 


AS JERRY TOLD IT. 


25 


a-settin’ dar on dey hosses, jes’ a-talkin’ an’ a-talkin’; 
I heared ’im sayin’ sum’p ’in’ ’bout she wus de pruties’ 
’ooman uver he did see, an’ she look mighty pleased 
an’ tole ’im he wus makin fun er her; I nuver thought 
dey seed me ’tall, but she turn right ’roun’ an’ ax 
me, ‘Jerry, how many birds you done killed?’ an’ 
I tole her jes’ no more’n about a dozen, ’cause I’s 
’feared ef I tole ’er how many I had, she’s gwine say 
I mus’ quit; den she say, ‘Very well, git dat fellow 
out frum under de burs dere, an’ we’ll all go home?’ 
Dat sorter got me like. I tried ter make out he wa’ant 
dar, but ole Rex he jes’ would keep pintin’ at de 
bur-bushes, and den dey sicked ’im on and he skrum- 
maged right froo, an’ de ole bird run out over ter er 
patch ’bout ten times as big, an’ all fulled up wid 
briers, an’ I cotched up er pole ter punch ’im out 
wid an’ Mi-S’Laidy got mad — she looks lik’ Marse 
Go’frey den — an’ say, ‘ Get in dar, you in-foot. You 
ain’t none too good fer de briers ter scratch, and dat 
sorter skeered me, an’ I jumped right spang in de 
middle er dem sticky things, an’ ole Rex he bounced 
in right arter me an’ tripped me up, an’ we bofe 
corned up all over burry. I felt som’p’in’ sorter 
scrunch under my foot when I lit in dar, an’ pres- 
ently I took an’ feeled roun’ in my tracks, an’ dar, sir, 
wus dis ole bird; my shoe-heel done mashed ’is head 
right clean off.” 

“Boy,” said Uncle Ned, as the narrator paused for 
breath, “you’s been gwine ter meetin’ ’till you is a 
powcrftil liar, an’ you knows it. Dat pa’t’idge ’d 
er dodged you slicker’n you steals Marse Go’frey’s 
peaches. An’ shoot wid two guns — de Lord a-Massy, 


26 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


? pon my conscience, white mens dey’se’ves don’ do 
dat, ’ceptin’ dey got some no’ count nigger like you, 
hired fer a dime, an’ follerin’ long ter tote de yother 
one. Dey done set you up so, ober yander at dat 
Vival, wid angels, an’ devils, an’ grace of God, an’ 
sperits, an’ tom-fool, an’ what not, you done clean 
forgot der truth, an’ wouldn’t know it if you wus ter 
meet it right squar’ ’long in de road.” 

Mammy Pauline, who was very devout, raised hands 
of horror at her husband’s impious utterance, and 
ejaculated, “God hab mussy on yo’ poor blasp' emions 
soul. Jerry, ax de church ter night not ter stop 
prayin’ fer dis hardened critter; ” and that youth, after 
an interval of speechless indignation, loftily remarked, 
“ I will pray fer conviction ter hit ’im like I hit dem 
pa’t’idges, bellin’ an’ befo’ an’ in de middle — an’ not 
ter let ’im be los’ at las’ in Satan’s brier-patch, tryin’ 
ter hide in dem rotten leaves.” 

“Jerry, come this way a minute,” called a clear 
voice from the piazza. The boy started as though a 
wasp had stung him. “ De Lawdy ! I wonder ef 
dey is heared me,” was his mental ejaculation as he 
obeyed the summons. Uncle Ned crept along after 
him, sure in his own mind that detection awaited 
the young villain. Miss Travers quitted Mr. Sum- 
ner’s arm, and leant over the railing, with, “ We have 
heard all your story, Jerry— and here’s a dollar for 
it' ar td you shall have another if you will tell it to 
Mr. Lane exactly the same way.” 

Poor Jerry ! The money seemed to burn him. 
He took the coin with a mumbled “ thanky marm, 
yes m but I dunno as I could. I fergits mighty 


AS JERRY TOLD IT. 


27 


bad — an’ — an’ — Marse Go’frey might hit me ’bout 
talkin’ dat way.” 

“ Ho ! ho ! ho ! I knowed you was lyin’. Mi-S’- 
Laidy ain’t seed de man yit whar she’d give up her 
gun fer ter talk wid,” roared Uncle Ned, whom the 
twilight made unconscious of Mr. Sumner’s proxim- 
ity. “An’ you oughter been beat instid er paid fet it.” 

“Uncle Ned,” said Miss Travers, “truth telling is 
one of those heathen virtues that polite and pious 
people have decided the world would be well rid of. 
Jerry will be a valuable apostle of the new gospel — 
that is, if he continues to grow in grace, as I want 
him encouraged to do, and you mustn’t say such 
things to him, but busy yourself with affairs of 
this life — and be sure to give us broiled birds for 
breakfast.” 

Uncle Ned went his way, considerably mystified, 
and the promenaders recommenced their slow pro- 
gress, while a low new moon made flecks of white 
silver aslant the floor, while tube-roses breathed out 
their souls in passion-sweet perfumes, and in the far 
parlor, from Cecil Wren’s fingers, stole a nocturne 
sadly soft as the falling of leaves. “ That woman 
puts her heart in her music,” the gentleman said, 
stopping to listen to an especially exquisite cadence. 
“ Yes — and nowhere else,” Miss Travers made reply, 
though well assured that her hearer would set down 
the speech to jealousy. The truth is, Miss Travers 
just then was in a reckless humor, withal somewhat 
bent upon gaining Mr. Sumner’s undeserved ill- 
opinion. He, I must say, did not seem ill-content 
with the state of life in which he now found himself, 


THE HOMESTRETCH, \ 


23 

but she chose to assume that it was otherwise, and 
presently stopping at the side door said, withdrawing 
her hand and dropping a courtesy, “You are released 
from durance vile. Say good-night — and go in to 
your Lorely,” and with that vanished up-stairs and 
was invisible till next noon, when a quaint carriage, 
summoned none knew how, took her away to the 
Unholy Sepulchre, otherwise Dr, Ellenbrod’s resi- 
dence. 


CHAPTER IV. 


THE WORTH OF A HALF-MINUTE. 

MISS Travers went away and Godfrey’s peace of 
mind went with her, but the rest of Eastbrook 
household found her absence at least not unendura- 
ble. Marion, it is true, fretted somewhat for her 
friend, spite of Mr. Evelyn’s almost constant con- 
solatory visits, while Lucia, who chose to fancy that 
their guest was somewhat a gourmet , went about on 
household thoughts intent, and Cecil’s fairy fingers 
wrought undisturbed, a spell stronger than that “of 
woven paces and of waving hands.” John Sumner 
felt himself in a curious state of mind. For almost 
forty years he had gone on his careless self-sufficient 
way, proud of his name and lineage, his wealth and 
power among men, taking pleasure in the sight 
and speech of whatever fair woman Fate threw in 
his path, but with no thought or care for any beyond 
the passing hour. Not that he led a life of peculiar 
saintliness. 

A gentleman, it is always understood, is allowed 
his necessary frailties — provided only they are kept 
reasonably well under the rose. If Mr. Sumner had 
amours, they were of the discreetest possible kind, 
which the public only guessed at, and straightway 
forgot. He meant to marry sometime — that is, if 
he outlived his mother, whom, being an only and 
most devoted son, he could never think of leaving — 

29 


30 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


and there would be no peace for a man betwixt two 
women’s jealous wrangling ; but that important 
change in his condition was not in any of his 
thoughts when he set out upon this present expedi- 
tion. 

Now a change had come over the spirit of his 
waking. It was so pleasant to lounge luxuriously 
about a well-appointed house, to have his taste, as 
far as he would express it, consulted in the tiniest 
particular, to be thus surrounded with fair faces and 
graceful figures, to sit and laugh behind his mus- 
tache over floods of feminine chatter — above all, to 
have Cecil Wren lap his soul into Elysium with her 
witchery of sweet sounds. Music, with him, was a 
passion — and here was a composite household that 
seemingly “ got on” as smoothly as the best double- 
jeweled chronometer. Of course he could not marry 
them all — with a smile over the limitation — but if 
one of them — say Cecil — she might brighten up 
Green Hill wonderfully, and at any rate he would be 
sure of the music — though Miss Fair was intensely 
lovely, and Marion full of youthful attractiveness. 
Laide did not enter as a factor in the problem. If 
she had not gone away, he had meant to amuse 
himself by humoring her evident desire to win his 
admiration, but for anything serious — no. He had 
heard too much of her. A woman who had run the 
gauntlet of five hundred flirtations would certainly 
never get a chance to write herself Mrs. John Sum- 
ner. In truth, I suspect that in the gentleman’s 
mind Miss Travers was marked with three crosses as 
trebly dangerous, but that he would never acknowl- 


THE WORTH OF A HALF-MINUTE . 


31 


edge — albeit he had a curious sense of relief and half 
disappointment when told that her absence was in- 
definite. 

Now, as to his chance of success with the damsels 
amongst whom Mr. Sumner had somewhat a mind 
to throw his royal handkerchief, I can only say that 
Miss Marion’s regard for him was properly indexed 
by certain speeches hereinbefore set down, she 
being too new to life and society to have acquired 
the art of a proper suppression of fact. Lucia, in de- 
fault of Major Ellis and his half-million, whom col- 
lectively she loved with cold, concentred passion, 
and whose dangling, bound hand and foot, at Laide’s 
chariot wheels, was the ashes of wormwood and 
double-distilled gall that so flavored all Miss Fair’s 
sentiments toward that person — would have given 
him, after proper hesitation, a cream-candy affirma- 
tive, and reduced him ere two years to a state of in- 
anity by sheer vis inertia ; while poor Cecil Wren, 
whose shy heart held all a woman’s natural love and 
longing for shelter and protection, and to whom this 
blonde giant’s coming and going had grown the sun- 
rise or the shadow, would have felt such joy in his 
preference as Fate allots but once to any mortal — at 
least, this side the stars. Poor, lonely, incapable 
genius, trained to dependence, and so unable to keep 
afoot in the pushing crowd of stronger natures, I 
have a great pity for all your kind, with their deso- 
late eyes and hungry-hearted envy of those better 
placed in life. Cecil had often thought bitterly that 
just a little of the love Laide won only to play with, 
and fling aside, would redeem her life from barren- 


32 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


ness, though she had decorously hidden the bitter- 
ness in her own heart, and been accounted a dull 
good girl who cared for nothing but music, and one 
in whose mind, by consequence, the coming man, 
whom all properly constructed women are duly ex- 
pectant of, had never effected a lodgment. The 
so-judging public might have learned to somewhat 
distrust its own infallibility, had it seen her nightly 
upon her knees, telling her beads — she was devoutly 
Catholic — and pitifully imploring blessing and pro- 
tection from all her saints for this man, against 
whose welfare or pleasure she would have held as 
nought her soul’s salvation. 

Had Mr. Sumner ever known the height and 
depth and breadth of her devotion, I think it is likely 
that, after the first sensation of gratified vanity, his 
feeling over it would have been one of deep disgust. 
What a man wins from woman without strenuous 
effort, he has little care for keeping — a fact which 
Cecil was happily saved from proving, partly by her 
discomforting shyness, which for once stood her in 
good stead, and partly by the fact that, save at the 
piano, where music was all the consciousness of 
both, they were almost never tete-a-tete . 

So matters slipped along for a space of ten days, 
and the Tieman will case having ended in mis-trial, 
Godfrey was once again a freeman, and Mr. Sum- 
ner s mind was fully made up that it was not good 
for man to be alone, and that Cecil Wren should have 
henceforth the privilege of making harmony in his 
household. Although it was now October, the air 
was still summer-soft, and the red and russet had 


THE WORTH OF A HALF-MINUTE. 


33 


made but faint impress on the green. This fateful 
day a foldless gray-blue vapor wrapped the sky and 
deadened the sunlight,- and all abroad ripe autumn 
scents from orchard, field, and hedge-row, spread 
with the sharp vividness that tells of coming rain. 
The house was still — so still that you could count 
the ticks of the great hall clock — the only sound 
that broke the deadly quiet. Presently it began to 
strike, and Cecil Wren, who sat lonely and hopeless 
within the parlor, bowed her face upon her hands 
and wove all manner of fancies through the chimes. 
“ One, two — he is gone away — gone away — away — 
away. Three, four — Lucia Fair — Fair — fairest — 
Fair. Five, six, seven — Love — Love — Heaven. Eight 
— wait — wait, always wait. Nine, ten — time is long 
— long, long. Eleven — weary day — weary day.” 
The last echo had hardly died up the wide stairway 
when a slow footfall on the terrace turf sent a faint 
red into the little woman’s face and an expectant 
thrill through every nerve of her sensitive body. She 
knew that the gentlemen had that morning set out 
for a shooting party ten miles away. What could 
be the meaning of this untoward return ? 

Mr. Sumner stepped through the window, and 
came straight to where she sat. “ I have the advan- 
tage of you,” he said, smiling, “ for I’ve known this 
last half hour I should find you in that chair, while 
you thought me miles away.” 

“ Yes,” she said, not caring or daring to utter more 
than that monosyllable, so great was the content 
flooding her whole being in the knowledge that he 
had been thinking of, had purposely sought her. 


34 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


Then, after a space of silence during which his eye 
most critically took in every detail of her shrinking 
grace — 

“ Are you that miracle — a woman without curios- 
ity ? Any other one, I know, would have asked me 
twenty times how I happened to be here.” 

“ I thought you would tell me if you wished me to 
know,” the girl said, the red getting hotter in her 
cheeks. A satisfied smile illumined Mr. Sumner’s 
countenance. “ I like that,” he said. “ If all women 
had such delicate discretion there would be a mar- 
velous diminution of unhappy homes.” He did not 
think how it sounded — the average man seldom does 
when he gets to generalizing. Besides, we all know 
that commonplace spoken by ourselves takes on a 
very authentic semblance of wisdom. And this say- 
ing, you may be sure, was most exquisite wisdom to 
its sole auditor. Only constant, long-continued, and 
most rasping friction can ever make a woman criti- 
cal of the man she loves ; whereas, a man — save in 
the very hottest glow of passion — seldom forgets to 
disapprove. 

At this moment Mr. Sumner was very nearly in 
love with his own intentions, and, to a less degree, 
with the object thereof ; but somehow he found the 
putting those intentions clearly in words a thing not 
easily compassed. His love-making heretofore had 
been of the careless-confident or contemptuous- 
commercial style, so experience went for nought 
against this little creature with her armor of purity 
and shield of shyness. Certain he would be allowed 
to do all the wooing— a state of things which, how- 


THE WORTH OF A HALF-MINUTE. 


35 


ever delightful to hypercritical gentlemen in the ab- 
stract, they sometimes find in the concrete a trifle 
inconvenient. So Mr. Sumner, in hope of some con- 
versational coign of vantage whence he might begin 
the meditated assault, after pause much shorter than 
the above highly moral observations, thus continued 
his speech : 

“ The truth is, Miss Wren, before we got three 
miles away, the Queen went dead lame, and I made 
Godfrey go on without me; so here I am on your 
hands for the rest of the day.” 

Cecil said, as was proper and womanly, “ I am 
sorry you were disappointed.” Though in truth, if 
her feeling were sorrow, it was such as would make 
this forever hereafter a red-letter day in her remem- 
brance. 

“ I thought — that is — I — I hoped — you would be — 
glad — as I am,” Mr. Sumner said, with a kind of awk- 
ward tremor in his tone, and his eyes so intently 
fixed on the front flower-bed, it was evident he 
meant to keep its pattern in mind. As for Cecil 
— poor child ! — connected thought she had none. 
She only felt — and of that feeling description 
would be desecration. Water in the desert, victory 
to the forlorn hope, pardon to the death-doomed 
are joyless and faintly-welcome compared with love 
to the loveless. She sat still and silent, her clasped 
hands showing waxen-fair against her sombre gown, 
while the clear even clock-beats seemed making 
sport of her hurried pulses. From where she sat, 
the face was visible ; in two minutes the quarter 
would strike, and then — spite of herself — the lids 


36 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


dropped over her black eyes, and her slim figure 
thrilled from head to foot with this intense pain of 
joy. A minute passed, then Mr. Sumner said, still in 
that awkward voice, and coming no whit nearer, 
“ Do you wish to know why I am glad ?” 

“Yes,” was almost whispered. 

“ Because I want you.” 

Here for the first time their eyes met, then 
quickly flew “ far as the poles asunder,” for the side 
door swung gently open, and in its frame, against the 
back-ground of leaf and sky, stood Laide Travers, 
her favorite silvery silken gown trailing about her, 
its cool pearliness turned to warmth by the rich dull 
red and gold of an India shawl that had slipped from 
shoulder to waist and was now held about her by 
one little gloveless hand, while at her throat one red 
rose caught and confined a mist of lace, and another, 
just above her temple, seemed to have lured into 
captivity a bird of Paradise. The veiled light gave 
to her face the lost freshness of youth, and some 
latent excitement sent her rare wild-rose color into 
either cheek. Cecil started at the apparition, and 
half rose from her chair. Mr. Sumner drew a hard 
breath — perhaps over its suddenness — and spite of 
himself, could not withdraw his eyes, and the clock, 
voicing that time that stands still withal for no hu- 
man affairs, neither our comedy nor our tragedy, our 
laughing, loving or dying, rang the quarter chime 
that seemed to one hearer to say, with the cadence 
of a death-knell, “ Gone ! gone !” 

Miss Travers took in the situation at a glance, 
and was immediate mistress of it. 


THE WORTH OF A HALF-MINUTE. 


37 


“ As unexpected returns are the order of the day, 
I hope I don’t intrude. We met the Knight of the 
Sorrowful Countenance some miles from here — and I 
tried to sweeten his temper by observing that bears 
were not generally successful bird-hunters — but all 
to no purpose,” she said, with a comprehensive cour- 
tesy to the stricken pair before her. 

“ And who was ‘ we, ’ I’d like to know ?” cried 
Marion, rushing in from the hall to give Laide a 
tempestuous welcome. 

“ Nobody — or ‘ Half a Million of Money’ — just 
which you choose,” Miss Travers said, pulling her- 
self together after the dislocation of Marion’s vigor- 
ous embrace. 

“And his other name it is Major Ellis. That poor 
man, Mr. Sumner, he spends no end of money — 
hundreds of dollars — on perfumes alone, in hope to 
find favor with Miss Travers — and you hear what 
she says of him. Isn’t it too bad ? — but what did 
Godfrey say to it ? He’s his most special bete 7ioir 
— and I believe he would rather you had stayed 
away than come back in such company and as 
Marion spoke, she lifted the bird of Paradise from its 
perch, and drew her friend to the easiest chair. 

“Godfrey,” that lady said slowly, “I think, but 
am not sure, he swore over it — and as to coming 
home, I did not intend it. It is raining, you see, and 
I have some regard for my good clothes.” 

“ It is well you have,” said Mr. Sumner, lightly, 
“for it’s coming down now like Noah’s flood.” 

“ And to complete the parallel, here come the 
animals,” said Marion ; “ Charley Evelyn and — yes, 


38 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


it is Mr. Milkway. Call Lucia, somebody, please. 
She asked him, and she shall certainly ‘ mark him 
for her own.’ I can only endure him when the 
weather admits of croquet.” 

“It seems my bad example is not ineffectual,’ 
Laide remarked aside to Mr. Sumner. “ I must cau- 
tion Marion. You gentlemen have such esprit de 
corps that each of you resents a slight remark about 
another man — unless he happens to be a rival.” 

“ Not exactly that,” was the answer. “But when 
we hear you make fun of other fellows, every whit 
our equals, the inference is irresistible, that our turn 
will come when your company changes/’ 

“What if it does?” Miss Travers said, looking 
steadily at him as she spoke. “ Do you always speak 
of us with such careful respect, such ‘ bated breath 
and whispering humbleness’ as not to merit re- 
prisals ?” 

“Yes — whenever you deserve it,” Mr. Sumner 
said ; then noting Laide’s quick breath, and remem- 
bering that she must know how often her name was 
malevolently bandied from lip to lip of her various 
ex-prctendnes , he called himself names for the 
idiocy of his implied reproof, and would have 
changed the current of their talk, but that she said : 

“Among men I suppose all are equally worthy,” 
and with that Parthian arrow swept away. 

Within a locked room Cecil Wren sobbed in uni- 
son with the rain, and Mr. Sumner, as he doffed his 
hunting gear for a costume of the parlor, wondered 
within himself if— given the opportunity — he would 
finish his interrupted sentence as he had intended. 


CHAPTER V. 


AS YOU LIKE IT. 

All day the rain fell torrent-wise, and a driving 
east wind spread the wet dimness of the outer world 
in every nook and corner of the house. In spite of 
it, however, though the electric vapor-laden air set 
nerve and pulse athrill like the call of a bugle, or a 
draught of fierce wine, Miss Travers behaved a-mer- 
veille , scolding Marion and Mr. Evelyn out of their 
customary mutual absorption, giving more than re- 
spectful attention to the Rev. Milkway’s nebulosi- 
ties, righting the fearful wrongness of Aunt Sarah’s 
crochet, tactfully turning Lucia’s spite into wit, 
and letting Mr. Sumner more severely alone than, 
even in his opinion, the case required. Indeed, I 
think but for her the party would have been duller 
than the day, while, as it was, the parlor was alive 
with laughter throughout the afternoon. Toward 
nightfall fires were built on every hearth, and the 
tetes-a-tetes with which Laide had all along con- 
tended, became inevitable. Mr. Milkway and Miss 
Fair holding a recondite discussion of ecclesiastical 
millinery, Mrs. Lane and Tipsy, her pet Maltese, 
dozing fitfully twenty feet away, while Marion and 
Charley promenaded from fire to fire — “ to see that 
the sparking was properly attended to,” that gen- 
tleman gravely told Miss Travers, who, after vainly 
trying to persuade Cecil into reappearance, was fain 
39 


40 


THE HOMESTRETCH 


to betake herself to Godfrey’s special snuggery, 
which was the very model of ease and disorderly 
bachelor comfort. She was very much at home 
there — being, in fact, the one woman made free of it 
— for she never fussed and wanted to set things to 
rights, did not call ballet-portraits “ horrid,” and had 
nerves impervious to the fragrance of tobacco. Here 
she and Godfrey often sat through the evening, 
reading, talking, or dreaming, as best suited their 
humors, and here she now awaited his arrival, with 
intent to tease or coax away his anger before letting 
him be visible to the rest of the household. The 
door was noiseless, the carpet deadened foot- 
falls, and Laide, stretched in dreamful ease upon 
red dust-browned velvet, knew nothing of Mr. Sum- 
ner’s presence until his shadow fell upon her ; albeit 
that gentleman had spent a good five minutes in 
contemplation of a picture to quicken the iciest 
pulses. Miss Travers lay at length among her 
cushions, one arm beneath her head, the other thrown 
above the sofa’s carven back. Her face caught dan- 
gerous softness from the fireshine, her white throat 
showed like pearl in its tangle of lace and gold, 
while below, the silken curves revealed the perfec- 
tion of womanly form, and a foot and ankle that was 
symmetry itself lay plain to view among billows of 
ruffle. Most women, perceiving Mr. Sumner, would 
have been instantly upright. This particular woman, 
having bitterly learned the folly of impulse, did not 
stir, but raised tranquil eyes to those so critically 
regarding her, and said, with the evenest possible 
accent ; 


AS YOU LIKE IT. 


41 


“It really seems that ‘nothing is inevitable but 
the unforeseen.’ ” 

“ Why do you say that ?” said Mr. Sumner, con- 
tinuing to look at her with reluctant admiration. 

“ Because,” said Miss Travers, steadily meeting his 
eye. 

“That is a woman’s reason.” 

“ And therefore no reason.” Then, with a slight 
shrug of her perfect shoulders, “ If you will have the 
rest of it, because we each came here to avoid the 
other.” 

“ Shall I go away ?” said Mr. Sumner stiffly, yet 
not stirring. 

“ By no means — instead, take Godfrey’s own chair 
and make yourself comfortable, as I am. You need 
not talk to me.” 

“ But I want to talk to you,” said Mr. Sumner, 
though indeed if such were the gentleman’s inclina- 
tion it was certainly exceeding laggard, for full ten 
minutes went by ere the silence was broken, and then 
it was Miss Travers who said: 

“ I would offer a penny for your thoughts, only I 
know exactly what they ar-e.” 

“ You will have to prove it by telling me,” said the 
gentleman. 

“ You are wondering ‘ how on earth shall I get rid 
of this woman ?’ ” 

Mr. Sumner was unluckily tres blo7ide, so even the 
flickering firelight showed how the red leaped to his 
face at this centre shot; however, he had, like most 
shy men, an understratum of audacity which upon 
occasion developed surprisingly; so now he said, with 


42 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


deference so elaborate as to be mocking, “Altogether 
a mistake; I am not willing to be rid of you for some 
time.” 

“Indeed! — but please tell me how long is ‘some 
time ’ ? ” 

“ Just as long as you will allow me to look at you.” 

“ It would take another woman to forbid that, and 
you can doubtless name her better than I.” 

“ There is no one who has a right to forbid it.” 

“ There might have been, but for my inopportune 
arrival; and by the way, Mr. Sumner, let me advise 
that if you mean to try again where there is a likeli- 
hood of spectators, you mask your batteries a little 
better. This morning you looked so insanely con- 
scious that I felt deliciously in the way.” 

“ I don’t understand,” said Mr. Sumner, with, how- 
ever, a complexion that belied his speech. 

“ It is a pity you do not,” said Miss Travers, with 
another shrug, “for the advice is as good as was 
ever wasted.” 

“ I see you have a talent for mistakes,” said the 
gentleman, ^drawing nearer, and looking straight 
down into her eyes. 

“ It is well-nigh a universal one,” said Miss Trav- 
ers, half turning from him. Par exemple , why do 
you think I went away ? ” 

“Well,” with rising audacity, “to punish Godfrey 
and pique me.” 

“ Partly right— though that is not all your opinion. 
Be sure you expend the whole of it in answering why 
I came back.” 

“ Let’s see — that is due partly to the rain, partly 


AS YOU LIKE IT. 


43 


to Major Ellis, and partly to the pleasure you take 
in vexing Miss Fair.” 

“And mainly — in your opinion — to the fact that I 
am making, as turfmen say, a waiting race for the 
John Sumner purse.” 

Ordinarily Mr. Sumner would have been fairly 
aghast at the desperate frankness of so merciless a 
clairvoyance, but now his senses had that intoxica- 
tion of beauty which emboldens more than wine. 
So, saying, “You are bound to win against any 
antagonist,” he bent and touched with irreverent 
lips her white uplifted hand. Miss Travers brushed 
away the caress as one might some slight annoying 
insect, and said, looking fixedly at him, “ You would 
better go back to the parlor.” 

“ If you will go too.” 

“ I will not.” 

“Why?” 

“ I must wait for Godfrey; besides, I am too com- 
fortable, except that my feet are cold. Please throw 
that rug across them and go away.” 

Mr. Sumner adjusted the bearskin with the great- 
est nicety, then dropped upon his knees beside the 
sofa, enfolded Miss Travers in resistless, passionate 
arms, and pressed hot contemptuous kisses on eyes, 
mouth, throat. One moment of enforced passivity, 
then the slight figure writhed from his loosened 
clasp rigidly upright, confronting him, not with the 
rosy anger or careless scorn for which he was pre- 
pared, but with a pallid face, with parted breathless 
lips, and eyes like those of some wild thing that has 
suddenly got its death hurt. For a second she stood 


a THE HOMESTRETCH. 

facing him, then without a word sank into the near- 
est chair, her clasped hands held hard against her 
heart, that seemed bursting with actual physical 
pain. Mr. Sumner was fairly at his wits’ end. Such 
agony he knew could not be simulated — but what to 
do was indeed a vexing question. Approach he 
dared not, go away he would, not, and he had an in- 
stinctive sense that to summon others would be to 
aggravate his offense. To his infinite relief the door 
swung open, and Godfrey hurried forward with, 
“What under heaven is the matter, Laide ? You 
look as if you had seen a ghost.” 

“ I — have,” she said, with slow, painful utterance, 
yet trying to smile. “You — know — they — walk — 
rainy — days.” 

“See if a glass of sherry will put them to flight.” 
Then very low, as Miss Travers sipped the golden 
liquor, and her breath came less in gasps, “ Is it one 
of the old spasms, Laide ? ” For answer she bowed 
her head, and Mr. Sumner, feeling himself very much 
out of place, would have gone away, but that she 
rose unsteadily, and taking Godfrey’s arm, was half- 
carried to her own room. Presently that gentleman 
came back, and after some minutes of desultory chat 
and uneasy poking of the fire, turned square about 
with, “ I’ve a horror of mystery — and after what you 
saw to-night I’d better tell you that years ago my 
cousin was subject to spasmodic action of the heart. 
She has been free of it so long, I hoped it would 
never return. As it has done so, I must beg you to 
say nothing about it; for sympathy and condolence 
— especially that of some people I know — would soon 
make an end of Laide.” 


AS YOU LIKE IT. 


45 


Of course Mr. Sumner gave the required promise, 
even engaging to put the whole occurrence com- 
pletely out of his mind ; but truth compels me to 
state that throughout the evening’s bachelor chat, 
that had apparently every element requisite to a 
high good time, he was singularly ill at ease, and by 
turns so forlornly silent and aggressively irrelevant 
as to rouse in the mind of his host a shrewd suspicion 
that the ghost of twilight had, oddly enough, been 
visible to two pairs of eyes. And even when he had 
got safe away to his own room it was no better. In 
spite of all, Sumner was, heart and soul, a gentleman 
— as a proof, feeling that he had both hurt and 
wronged a woman, he did not choose to lay the 
blame on her shoulders, as is the wont of men, but 
placed it all to his own discredit* and had no little 
perturbation and distress of mind as to what manner 
of reparation would not make matters worse. Spite 
of the lulling patter of rain, sleep fled his eyelids ; 
yet through all the tossing and disquiet ran a silver 
thread — a consciousness he could not have put into 
words ; a subtle sense of something that henceforth 
gave life new purpose and meaning ; of something 
missed from the beginning, whose loss would bring 
utter darkness. His morning’s purpose was utterly 
forgotten — or only remembered as something es- 
caped. Nerve and pulse were athrill, soul and sense 
steeped to intoxication, in the vivid fascination of 
Laide Travers’ shining eyes and fatal sweet lips. 
Heavens ! That he had dared to touch them. He 
could understand now the legend of the Lorelei — 
how men might go gladlyto death under the waters 


46 


THE HOMESTRETCH 


for such as she, once having known the madness of 
her kisses. Through darkness and silence he seemed 
to see her face, now radiant, now mocking, now 
lightly indifferent, but oftenest full of the pathetic 
pride and pain with which she had last looked at 
him. How should he express his contrition ? Inter- 
vention — even Godfrey’s — was out of the question, 
and personal reference not to be thought of. He 
would give her henceforth the nicest deference, the 
most careful courtesy, and wait with what patience 
he might for chance to let him right the balance now 
so weighted against him. Meantime, as the under- 
taking was likely to require all that was in a man, 
he would go to sleep — the which, of all Mr. Sumner’s 
excellent resolves, seems to me the most praise- 
worthy. 


CHAPTER VI. 

MERCY. 

THREE days of south wind, with fitful rain, 
and shrouding mist, and downward-whirling leaves, 
and vagrant glints of sunshine ; then a bitter north- 
wester blew away the summer softness, and the 
weeping clouds swept long drifts of red and yellow 
across lawn and terrace, and set the first sparse 
flights of brant and teal in the swollen leaf-choked 
streams. 

Godfrey was in ecstasy. None of his English 
country-gentleman ancestry had keener relish than 
he for sport — and partridges were grown monoton- 
ous. Besides, with Laide invisible, Cecil in the 
sulks, Lucia Fair more artful and desperately wicked 
than even she was beautiful, and John Sumner semi- 
idiotic — throughout those three wet, wearing days, 
it was not surprising that he, Godfrey Lane, who 
had borne the brunt of it, should go fairly wild over 
a thing that promised the relief of action and excite- 
ment. 

So it came about that as the stars were dying in 
the dawn, our two gentlemen flung themselves into 
saddle, and headed straight for the mill-pond, with 
Jerry in their wake, and our old friend Rex and the 
water-spaniel, Hebe, making leaping circles in the 
road. The Queen was still lame; by consequence 
Mr. Sumner’s mount was Ingle, as the only other 


48 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


horse in Eastbrook stables worthy so distinguished 
a burden and trained to stand fire. 

“Does Miss Travers permit?” he had asked at 
starting, and Godfrey made haste to answer : 

“ I know her too well to trouble her with the 
question. Whatever she has is as heartily at my ser- 
vice as I and my belongings are at hers.” Then, 
after a pause, “ I wish, John, she had let you have a 
better opinion of her. She is really a heart of gold 
— the best fellow that ever, by somebody’s mistake, 
got put into petticoats, but willful as — as — a half- 
broken mule. You see it belongs to that persuasion, 
and she can’t escape it.” 

Mr. Sumner said : “ My dear fellow, I hope you 
don’t dream I dare to disapprove of Miss Travers. 
She would punish such presumption by instant — fas- 
cination — and you see she gives me only the civility 
due her cousin’s guest.” 

Godfrey’s face brightened. “You’re not so far 
wrong as I thought,” he said, gripping the other’s 
hand ; “but let’s get out of this snail’s-gallop, and 
slack your rein a bit. Ingle, like her mistress, is 
restless under a curb, but a perfect lamb when al- 
lowed her own way.” 

“Then she shall certainly have it,” and with that 
the friends dashed over the soft, black road, down 
the slowly-waking valley, the hoof-strokes falling 
with rhythmic beat on the rich alluvion, and striking 
now and again a sparkle from the rare pebbles in its 
breast. Presently they came upon the mill-pond, lying 
wide, gray and still under the pink heaven — a vapor 
curtain shimmering above it and veiling all the sur- 


MERCY. 


49 


face. Upland the wind blew strong as a giant, noisy 
as a victor, but the valley in the lee of sharp hills 
held the peace of a great calm. The mill was stir- 
less ; a glassy sheet poured over the dam into the 
rocky lower pool, and from the flags and rushes that 
grew about the edge came sounds of wheedling 
chatter and much splashing, that spoke the presence 
of the game our sportsmen were in quest of. 

“ Luck will be the best shot until the fog lifts,” 
said Mr. Lane, as they went cautiously forward. 
“ Luckily, it can’t affect Rex and Beauty’s noses — 
and here’s what will keep it out of our throats.” 

Mr. Lane spoke with the confidence of the modestly- 
righteous, but for once he reckoned without his host. 
The hunting flask, last night filled with the best of 
Cognac, was now as empty as the average political 
platform. Jerry had been charged with stowing 
away the sinews and munitions of war in the many 
pockets of the gentlemen’s hunting suits — and Jerry 
had a fondness for spiritual strength of other than 
the revival kind. The revival stood the storm — 
thereby showing itself thoroughly water-proof — and 
the night preceding Jerry’s eloquence in exhorta- 
tion had been so entirely fourth-proof, and so exclu- 
sive in quantity, as to set his own partisans fairly 
wild, and arouse the envious ire of his overshadowed 
elder brethren, and finally to wind up the exer- 
cises with an impartial free fight. All this Mr. Lane 
did not know, yet it became clear to his mind’s eye 
when, upon turning to question his man-at-arms, he 
found him prone upon the neck of the mule he was 
riding, limp, nerveless, and fast asleep. 


56 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


“ Jerry !” in a voice of distant thunder. The boy 
did not stir. 

“ Jerry ! !” in louder tone. 

“ Jerry ! ! ! You scoundrel !” this time regardless 
of the ducks ; but Jerry was as motionless as though 
carved of bronze, or sitting for the portrait of a Cen- 
taur. To dismount and pull him from the saddle was 
half a minute’s work for Mr. Lane ; yet even that, 
with a vigorous shaking, did not waken the boy to 
the extent of getting him on his legs. He dropped 
from his master’s hold down on the cool earth, and 
began to mumble between convulsive gasps and in- 
effectual kicks. “ G-lo-ory ! gl-ory ! I am done — 
gone ter — hebben — in de tr-ance — on de ribber ob 
God’s promises. Ober — yonder is de lam’ — an’ de 
sperit — in er — kittle er — gole honey — an’ de Life- 
Book’s open — an’ my name’s in dar — an’ Tom, an’ Pe- 
ter — an’ it say Unc. Ned mus’goter hell. Whoop-ee-e, 
gl-ory ! g-lory ! An’ de debbil’s here too. He looks 
des’ like er groun’ hog — right ober dar, ’hine Nat 
Beemish — clim’in’ up his head. Kill ’im, O-o-o, kill 
him, ’fore he bites dese God’s peoples, like he have 
dem’s ober dar — wid de toof er sin — ” 

“ Hold your noise. You’ll scare every duck on 
the creek. Shut up, or I’ll give you something worse 
than the ‘ toofer sin,”’ said Mr. Lane, almost beside 
himself with exasperation. Jerry continued all of a 
heap, writhing, moaning at the top of his voice, and 
launching out fiercely with his feet at the Arch Ene- 
my, whose present corporeal shape was evidently Mr. 
Lane’s. 

“ If mind can’t stop you, matter shall,” that gen- 


MERCY. 


51 


tleman said, depositing a muddy tuft of sedge in the 
boy’s open mouth. 

“ He’s drunk,” said Mr. Sumner. 

“ And I’ll sober him,” was the answer, as Mr. Lane 
gathered the now quiet form under his arm and pro- 
ceeded to souse the head several times in the clear, 
cold water of the pool. Heroic treatment is seldom 
ineffectual. Three plunges, and Jerry brought up 
standing with such a jerk as almost overset his mas- 
ter. “ Whar I corned from ?” he asked, with a laugh- 
able air of amazement, as he cleared eyes and 
mouth of their mud and water. 

“ Heaven — whither you were carried by the spirit 
of my brandy-flask,” said Mr. Lane, solemnly, exhib- 
iting that article. Jerry put on an air of preternatu- 
ral innocence. “ I does ’clar ’fore God I never tochted 
it,” he said; “ I ain’t never did done it. Unc. Ned 
mus’ er done it. It — it makes me sick.” 

“ I see it does — so sick that you’ll be fit for noth- 
ing but telling lies the rest of the day. Go to your 
mammy’s house, and tell her what you have done — 
and that I say give you a sound thrashing and keep 
you in bed till to-morrow morning,” was “ Marse 
Go’frey’s ” unbelieving response. 

Jerry began to whimper, despite his fifteen years. 
“ I — I do — ’ant no ’ooman to whoop me. Whoop 
me yo’self, Marse Go’frey ! ” 

Mr. Lane laughed. “ Couldn’t think of it, Jerry. 
Twould be more trouble than you are worth — but 
’if you don’t clear out instanter I will put you in the 
water again until you are sober as a judge — or jury- 
man either.” 


52 THE HOMESTRETCH. 

After that Jerry stood not upon the order of his 
going, and as he made haste slowly along his home- 
ward way, the wind took back to his ruthless em- 
ployer more than one lamentation. “Whoop — by — 
er ’ooman — and me mos’ er preacher.” Then our 
gentlemen got about the work in hand with but 
indifferent fortune. The noise of the skirmish and 
the waking of the mill so frightened the game that 
it grew exceedingly wary; and in the safe ambush of 
lifting fog, sought up-stream coverts and corn-fields 
of better seclusion. Of course the hunters followed. 
With men, pursuit exceeds possession “as daylight 
doth a lamp.” Indeed, I think they were rather 
grateful to the fowl for leading them a wild and 
winding way. At last, when they were well home — 
in fact, in the overflown Eastbrook meadow, they 
got within range of a wisp of Blue-wing. The next 
minute, dogs and men were struggling through the 
overgrown fence, reckless of vine-tangles and heavy- 
charged guns. Godfrey had got safe to his feet, and 
with his right barrel dropped the bird that rose 
twenty yards away, when the noise of a gun made 
him turn to see Mr. Sumner entrapped in a net of 
brambles, vainly striving to extricate his yet smok- 
ing gun. 

“ I’m not hurt,” he said, in answer to his host’s 
eager inquiries, “ but look to the horses. They were 
just in range.” 

“ Fire-fly is scared, but not hurt by your young 
cannon,” said Mr. Lane cheerily, “and Ingle — good 
God ! I’m afraid we must give her the other bar- 
rel,” as the animal moaned and turned her head 


MERCY . : 


53 


toward her flank, where the raking shot at point- 
blank range had left a long ghastly wound. 

“ I’d rather shoot myself,” said Mr. Sumner, turn- 
ing away from the ghastly sight. “ I deserve it 
for the carelessness of not unloading.” 

“That’s so, young man,” said a third voice, “but 
disfurnishing your brain-pan won’t cure the poor 
beast. Let me see if there’s any help for her.” 

“Dr. Ellenbrod,” cried Godfrey, wringing his hand, 
“you were never more welcome. Have you been 
up to the house ? ” 

“Ay, lad — but Laide was away wandering about — 
and I could not send for her, else they’d have known 
you sent for me, so I’m coming back to-morrow.” 

“ Please tell us what to do,” said Mr. Sumner, im- 
patiently. 

“ We must first find out if anything can be done,” 
deliberately putting on his spectacles, while Godfrey 
removed the saddle and slacked the rein. 

After a long searching look the doctor said : “ It’s 
a bad job — or a good one. ‘ Eley’s green wire cart- 
ridges ’ may be depended on to kill. The hurt is 
deeper than a flesh wound — and the mare has one 
chance in a million for life. She will have three 
days of torment — if she is not put out of it. Best 
tell Laide, and let her settle it — and I’m sore-hearted 
for the lass. This creature was the apple of her 
eye.” 

Mr. Sumner groaned inwardly, and Godfrey said : 

“You must come back and help me, doctor. I’d 
rather face a cannon alone than such an errand.” 

“ You’ll do best alone,” said the doctor ; then turn- 


54 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


ing to Mr. Sumner, “ Come home with me, young 
gentleman. Elinor Wyndham was my first love, as 
well as your mother — and I want to find out how 
she has brought up a son.” 

“Do, John,” said Godfrey, unmindful of hospitality 
in his eagerness to withdraw his friend from his evi- 
dent self-accusation. 

“ You’re very kind,” said Mr. Sumner, “ but I can’t 
go. It would be too cowardly.” 

“ Nonsense,” said the doctor. “ Come along, come 
along ; Laide ’ll bear no malice for the accident, yet 
you’ll be better out of the way until — it’s all over.” 

“ She might reasonably hate the sight of me,” said 
Mr. Sumner ; and after somewhat further of argu- 
ment and urging, it was settled that he should go. 

Then, being athirst, all sought the spring a hun- 
dred yards up stream, and they were scarcely out of 
sight ere Laide Travers came, swift and light as a 
fawn, from the opposite overhanging bluff, whence 
all the luckless happening had been plain to her eyes 
and ears. Her face had the pallor and rigidness of 
death, yet her sorrowful eyes were tearless. Five 
feet away from her wounded pet she stopped, held 
out both hands, and called, clear and soft, “ Ingle.” 
The hurt creature essayed a forward step, then stood 
still with a low, piteous moan. The next minute 
Laide’s arms were around her neck, her cheek 
pressed close against the satin skin, and big hopeless 
tears raining over her white face. The mare stood 
stock still, save for quivers of pain and sidewise mo- 
tions of her head toward the agonizing wound. 
Presently Miss Travers loosed her hold and bent a 


Mercy. 


55 

long gaze into the trustful eyes that seemed to meet 
her regard with wistful dumb appeal. Then she 
dipped her hat in the creek and brought the thirsty 
creature water, and took lumps of sugar from the wide 
pocket where Ingle’s soft nose was wont to search 
for them. “ Eat them, pretty girl,” she said, hold- 
ing them on her open palm ; and the mare took one 
daintily between her teeth, then dropped it, as 
though lacking strength to crush it. Miss Travers 
drew the glossy head close against her heart, and 
kissed the white-starred forehead. 

“ There is no hope,” she said, very softly. “ Ingle, 
you never failed me — and I will not fail you, darling, 
if — it — breaks — my — heart.” 

With that she took the pistol which, by Godfrey’s 
entreaty, she always carried upon her solitary ram- 
bles, from her belt, placed it against the junction of 
the neck and head, said, under her breath, “ Good- 
bye, darling,” turned away her eyes, and fired. 

The bullet was as fatal as it was merciful. Inglo 
fell dead without a groan or quiver — and her mis- 
tress, after making sure she had done no sloven 
work, went back the way that she came, all uncon- 
scious that two pairs of eyes had watched all her 
latest movements. 


CHAPTER VII. 


“ OAK.” 

“ THERE’S a girl for you,” said Dr. Ellenbrod, as 
Laide disappeared. “She is Lion Travers right 
over — and he was the true grit of a gentleman, 
every inch of his six feet.” 

“ Ought not some one to follow her ?” said Mr. 
Sumner. “ She has been ill — and is so pale, I fear 
she will faint.” 

“ She will not — and if she ever should, ye needn’t 
try restoratives. It would be ‘ Love’s Labor Lost.’” 

“Why?” 

“ Because of her temperament — or rather her race 
— which is so intensely vital that nothing short of 
death will bring insensibility. Laide, who is one- 
third brain and the rest nerve and deviltry, will 
know more joy and sorrow in her life than a million 
of organized clods.” 

“ Your estimate is unflattering.” 

“ She would not think so — indeed,” with a quick 
side glance, “ if I wanted to win her love, I’d begin 
by showing her that I understood — and appreci- 
ated — her diabolism. There is nothing she hates 
like your strictly-proper, goody-goody young man 
or woman.” 

“You should speak with authority — being her 
guardian.” 

“ Only informally now. She is past age — six-and- 

56 


“ OAK. 


57 


twenty, I believe — yes, it’s eleven years this autumn 
since we buried Lion — and, in spite of my grief, I 
felt as though I’d got in charge of a fifteen-year-old 
tornado. True, Godfrey shared my responsibility — 
but I didn’t think a boy of twenty-one would be 
much help where a pretty girl was concerned — es- 
pecially one who had been from birth mistress of 
everything about her. Laide’s mother died when 
she was born, and her father never crossed her 
slightest whim. I believe he would have made 
Christmas bonfire of Eastbrook, if she had chosen to 
wish it. Luckily, however, I soon found myself mis- 
taken all around. Godfrey was — as he is — a rock 
for steadiness, and the day Laide came to my house 
she said : ‘ I — promised — not to — trouble you — and 
I won’t — if I can help — it ’ — and, bless her ! she 
didn’t — though her white face, and dry, sorrowful 
eyes, and pitiful ways, brought the water into my 
eyes more times than I can tell you. I couldn’t love 
an own child better — and to this day she’s never 
given me but one serious heartache.” 

“ And that ?” 

“A passing trouble — now well ended. If I could 
only see her married to a man who deserved her be- 
fore I die, there’d be nothing left to wish for.” 

“ How would Godfrey do ?” 

“Admirably — save for the fact that they are too 
good friends ever to be lovers.” 

“ Major Ellis seems in favor just now.” 

“You have been long enough resident at East- 
brook to understand that nothing but the wish to 
torment that cream-candy devil, Lucia Fair, would 


58 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


make Laide endure the attentions of that underbred 
libertine.” 

“Has the parson a better chance ?” 

“ Milkway ? I did not know he aspired so far. 
Depend on it, though, Laide Travers will never 
marry less than a man.” 

“ You are fastidious as the young lady herself. Is 
there a favorite whom I know not of?” 

“ ‘ A favorite !’ Yes — but you know him, I hope, 
very thoroughly.” 

“Indeed! Who is he ?” 

Dr. Ellenbrod caught the younger man’s hand in 
a hard clasp, and his tone was husky as he said : 

“ You thought I jested in speaking of your mother, 
but it was truth — bitter truth. I loved and lost her, 
and it spoiled my life. My wife is a good woman 
and true — but the house so fills her heart, there isn’t 
room for me in it. The sight of you has brought 
back that old time with strange vividness. Is it not 
natural, then, that I should want the woman I love as 
a daughter to marry the man who ought to have 
been my son ?” 

Mr. Sumner almost caught his breath over it. “ I 
— I — dare not hope. She — I think — I know I have 
made her hate me,” he stammered, turning all man- 
ner of colors under the inquisitorial gaze so fixed 
upon him. 

“ But you love her ?” 

A silent affirmative. 

“ Good — then she must love you.” 

Mr. Sumner’s bewilderment grew more helpless. 

“Yes,” Dr. Ellenbrod repeated, “she must love 


OAK 


59 


you. You shall constrain her by the force and might 
of passion. Her wooers heretofore have lacked the 
element of mastery. Show yourself to her strong as 
a tempest, tender as a zephyr — and you will suc- 
ceed.” 

“I do not deserve it,” said Mr. Sumner, “for I 
love her in spite of myself.” 

“ ‘Love often makes the fool a wise man, and the 
wise man a fool’ — but as I live there’s Oak. What 
wind blew him hitherward, I wonder ?” 

Looking down the road, Mr. Sumner saw a limp, 
undersized figure, with shock hair, and thin, lifeless, 
carroty beard, fringing somewhat distorted features. 
In his hand was a huge knotted staff, and he walked 
with a rapid, shambling gait, his eyes fixed search- 
ingly upon the ground, and his thin lips constantly 
forming inaudible words. 

At Dr. Ellenbrod’s “What now, Oak ?” he started 
bolt upright, showing a face vacant of intelligent 
purpose, though a spice of idiot-cunning lay in the 
bleary eyes, and answered, in queer high falsetto, 
“Nothing, Tom ; nothing. I’m just walking out — 
walking out then, in a loud whisper, after an edge- 
wise look at Mr. Sumner, “Who is that? Laide’s 
new beau ? new beau ?” 

“ That is Mr. John Sumner — and this is my 
nephew, Oakley Ellenbrod,” said Dr. Ellenbrod, his 
voice hardening in spite of himself. 

Ordinarily pity and amusement were all he felt to- 
ward the poor fellow ; but now, in this vivid realiza- 
tion of the might-have-been, a hot flash of scorn 
went over him, and disgust, that was pain, filled his 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


soul at sight of this, the one creature of his own 
name and blood. 

His father, one of those fatally-handsome, high- 
mettled youths, who are born winners and breakers 
of hearts, had blighted his life by a mad marriage 
with a questionable woman — and two years later, 
when he lay dying, the stricken elder brother took 
from his arms the puny baby which the mother had 
deserted. “ You’ll be good to him, Tom. He has 
my name — and pray God he may have your truth 
and steadfast honor. Do not visit his mother’s sin 
upon him, but love him as I would,” said the stiffen- 
ing lips — and Thomas Ellenbrod swore inwardly 
that the child should be always as his own, and 
thenceforth shaped his life solely with reference to 
the boy’s best good. Love went out of his life with 
stately Elinor Wyndham, but he wedded shortly a 
quiet, comely woman, who was well content with 
respect and honor, and gave to the poor deserted 
baby the lavish love which no child of her own ever 
came to claim. She nursed, tended and believed in 
him long after her husband’s clearer sight had all too 
painfully discerned his mental and physical weak- 
ness ; and even in his shambling ill-made maturity 
she refused to admit that aught was seriously amiss 
with Oak. He was “just sickly, and maybe a little 
odd.” 

The postulate nobody could deny. Oak’s oddity 
was too pronounced — and from tying his beard with 
ribbon, in emulation of the housemaid’s hair-bows, to 
murdering sleep with lusty answers to the midnight 
cock-crowing, there was scarcely a note in the scale 


“ oak: 


61 


which he had not sounded. Harmless and semi- 
rational, no restraint was placed upon him, and staff 
in hand, he ranged the countryside like some palmer 
of old, sure, wherever he might choose to rest, of 
welcome, good cheer, and a laughingly attentive au- 
dience. He went always afoot, and despite his halt- 
ing gait made wonderful speed. A horse was his 
terror, and no persuasion could induce him to mount 
one — at least one endued with the power of loco- 
motion. 

In the garret at home was a huge rocking-horse, 
upon whose back he spent such rainy days as 
chanced to find him there. The delight of his life 
was “ swappin’ things,” and he would barter his 
knife or his clothes, regardless of intrinsic value, 
with anyone who would offer him a few cents to 
boot, and rarely came home without some piece of 
apparel exchanged for the worse ; but any hurt to 
his raiment was more than healed by the jingling of 
the “boot” in his pocket. An inveterate gossip, he 
was always full of delightfully untrustworthy stories, 
to which the right-thinking gave less heed than to a 
puff of thistledown, though more than one social 
complication had arisen from their repetition and en- 
largement by the undiscriminating. 

But two people had ever reached his heart — 
“ Tanty,” whose pure devotion won a sort of pettish 
fondness in return, and Laide Travers, whose un- 
shrinking sympathy and tireless recitations of rhyme 
and fairy-tale had brightened, more than aught else, 
his dreary boyhood. For his uncle he held a sort of 
awed respect. “Tom’s got my money,” he would 


62 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


whisper, slyly. “I’ll have it when he dies, have it 
when he dies — trade a heap then, trade a heap then 
— rattle it in my pockets when I go to see the girls, 
see the girls — all want me then, want me then — keep 
it myself, keep it myself — have none of ’em, have 
none of ’em.” 

After a quick, furtive glance at Mr. Sumner, he 
sidled away from him, regardless of the hand that 
gentleman held out. 

“ I don’t believe he’s safe, Tom,” he whispered 
loudly; “don’t believe he’s safe. Laide says blue 
eyes are deceitful — told me so when Lucia said she 
would marry me when you died, when you died.” 
Then, aloud. “ But he’s got a watch. Say, do you 
want to swap ? — want to swap ? I do, if you’ll give 
me a dollar to boot,” producing, as he spoke, a bat- 
tered silver time-piece that, by appearance, might 
well have kept behind time in the Ark. 

It was Oak’s proudest possession — the investment 
of the hoarded boot of years, and, in his opinion, al- 
most worth the enormous sum by which he had 
sought to differentiate its value with Mr. Sumner’s 
double-jeweled chronometer. 

Dr. Ellenbrod said, laughing : “ Come home to do 
your trading, Oak. This gentleman is going there, 
and you must not cheat him too badly in your own 
house.” 

“ You tell Lucia it’s mine — tell her it’s mine. She 
made fun of me, and she wants to marry rich — marry 
rich — but I won’t have her now, have her now. 
Marion’s prettiest, anyway — prettiest in the house.” 

“ What about Cecil ?” queried his uncle. 

Oak gave a kind of snort. “ She looks like weeds 


“ OAK” 


63 


smell, weeds smell — and plays, plays — always plays, 
so they can’t hear me talk, hear me talk. Laide’s 
best of all, best of all — give me a new knife, new 
knife — says she’d rather ride on my horse, if he’d 
just go ’long, than in Ellis’s fine buggy, fine buggy. 
I’ll put him on wheels, on wheels.” 

“ When will you be home ?” asked the uncle, cut- 
ting short the stream of words. 

“ Not to-day — must find out somethin’, find out 
somethin’, ” came back to them as the limp figure 
darted off as though fearing forcible detention. 

Looking after him, Dr. Ellenbrod sighed. A proud 
man, with pride of race his very heart’s core, it was 
but rarely he showed to other eyes what deadly hurt 
this harmless wittol gave him. 

In figure, stature, face, John Sumner was all his 
father’s son, but to Elinor Wyndham’s lover, the 
heaven-blue eyes, the slender, shapely hand, a cer- 
tain vibrant quality of voice, recalled the passion of 
his youth, and made his sense of wrong and loss too 
vivid to be hidden. 

“ Each day I thank God for the mercies of death. 
If my boy had lived to see his son grow up, I cannot 
bear even to think of what he must have suffered,” 
he said, as they rode slowly on. “ Depend on it, lad, 
when a man marries, it’s pretty well for eternity. A 
good woman may bless, or a bad one curse, not 
merely his life, but other lives which shall come 
after him for a thousand years.” 

Dr. Ellenbrod’s home was a faded brick house, 
— outside, forbiddingly square and upright, inside, 
delightfully antique, with its narrow windows, lofty 
ceilings, and panels of carven oak, withal, spotless 


64 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


throughout as faultless housewifery and eternal vigi- 
lance could make and keep it. The mistress of it, 
soft-voiced and gray-gowned, was comfortable alike 
to eye and ear. The table would have tempted the 
strictest anchorite ; the guest-chamber was a mar- 
vel of luxurious neatness, and the host the most ori- 
ginal of pleasing companions. Yet, I am constrained 
to say that Mr. Sumner was scarcely less impatient 
for the ending of his allotted three-days’ sojourn 
than if Dirt, Discomfort and Ennui had been his 
trencher-company and bed-fellows. The truth is, he 
suffered severely with that distemperature which, 
unfortunately for the poets, most rarely doth prove 
fatal to a child of Adam, and by consequence of Dr. 
Ellenbrod’s injudicious fanning of the flame, he was 
rapidly passing from the stage of insanity into that 
of idiocy, wherein the flower, and sweetness, and 
value of life, found expression solely in the name of 
Laide Travers. 

The state is common enough among women, but 
men rarely reach it, save when, as in this case, they 
go scatheless for so long as to pique the blind god 
into sending his sharpest arrows, once the vulnerable 
spot is found. 

Oak came home in the middle of Mr. Sumner’s 
visit, and for a while maintained his attitude of sus- 
picious distrust, but an exchange of knives so molli- 
fied him that he veered around to the extreme of con- 
fidence, and insisted upon showing his new friend his 
own peculiar treasures stowed away in the garret. 
They proved a motley lot— feathers of all hues ; 
bird-nests innumerable, with the eggs still undis- 
turbed ; huge paper-walls built by hornet, wasp, 


OAK." 


65 


or bumblebee ; smooth-worn pebbles ; bundles 
of grape-vine “ smokers fishing-rods of cane and 
pawpaw, with roots and herbs enough to brew a 
witch-broth. At one side was an old worm-eaten 
desk, and, raising the sloping lid, Oak showed its 
drawers and recesses crowded with bits of paper of 
every size, shape, color and condition, most of them 
crowded with his own peculiarly ungainly scrawl, 
while here and there a more legible bit bespoke a 
transcript made with Chinese fidelity. 

“ That’s my book, my book,” he said, dropping the 
lid with a satisfied smile. “ Oak sees what nobody 
knows, writes down all the devilment, sell it to the 
law by and by, sell it to the law — but don’t tell 
Tom; he’d want half the money, half the money.” 

“ How much are your secrets worth ?” asked Mr. 
Sumner. 

“ Would you give ten dollars if it was ’bout Laide, 
’bout Laide ?” was the counter query. 

“ Yes,” said Mr. Sumner ; “but you like her, and 
surely would not tell anything she did not want 
known.” 

“ I like money best, money best. Give me a quar- 
ter, and I’ll tell you I bought her some paint — red 
paint — went to town for it. She sends me when she 
is sick, and don’t want Lucia to know it, Lucia to 
know it. Mind you, don’t tell her, don’t tell her.” 

“ I will tell Miss Travers to send me instead. / 
can keep a lady’s secret without pay,” laughed Mr. 
Sumner. 

“ She won’t do it, won’t do it,” said Oak, with a 
preternatural grin; “for Tanty says she wants to 
marry you, wants to marry you.” 


CHAPTER VIII. 

JUSTICE. 

“ I HOPE you devoutly believe it is lawful to do 
good on the Sabbath day ?” 

Miss Travers, in the fittest of fresh autumn toilets, 
is the speaker, and Mr. Sumner, whom she addresses, 
thinks there was surely never loveliness so winsome 
as that which shows in the shine and shadow of her 
shifting face. He makes haste to answer : 

“ I believe — and will be most happy to prove my 
faith by any works you may show me.” 

“ Go with us to the colored baptizing, instead of 
to church. Marion, Charley and I make up the 
party-^and I hate the part of Mademoiselle de TropP 

“ Do I count for nothing ?” says Godfrey, coming 
behind and turning her to face him. 

“You will have to go to church. The head of the 
house must never show defection from the straight 
and narrow way.” 

“ I don’t see it — besides, you have given me so 
much experience in it, I rather like playing goose- 
berry.” 

“ I hate English slang. It is so insipid at second 
hand.” 

“ More so than French ?” 

“Very much more so. ‘Miss Too Many’ is at 
once expressive and oppressive, as all lovers can tes- 
tify. ‘Gooseberry’ is simply idiotic.” 

“My dear fellow,” says Mr. Sumner, “have you 


JUSTICE. 


67 


any idea of how much your conspicuous absence 
would be appreciated ?” 

“ An accurate one ; but self-preservation is the 
first law of nature, and I should die of envy if com- 
pelled to sit throughout Milkway’s intonings and 
genuflections, knowing the rest of you ranged the 
creekside in perilous freedom.” 

“ Which means — being interpreted — he will go, 
because I did not ask him. If I had, he would doubt- 
less have read me a lesson longer than the moral law 
upon the levity, not to say impiety, of such a pro- 
ceeding.” 

“ About the size of it,” says Godfrey, imperturba- 
bly ; and after a little space the quintette slip away 
through the back entrance, and walk through the 
late golden sunshine, across meadow, cornfield and 
woodland. Presently they reach the boundary and 
come out upon the highway, and going slowly along 
its beaten curves, find themselves unexpectedly face 
to face with Major Ellis’s showy turnout. The black 
horses, glittering in gold-mounted harness, champ 
and fret under a cruel rein, while their owner sits 
erect, his eyes hungrily devouring the lovely, sensu- 
ous face beside him. With its velvet-black eyes, 
rose-leaf skin, red-gold hair, and perfect scarlet lips, 
it may reasonably excuse any extent of masculine 
preoccupation; yet the gentleman starts and colors 
perceptibly at sight of Laide, and when her clear 
voice says, with distinct emphasis, “ Good morning, 
Miss Gordon,” he whips his horses out of sight with 
a half-smothered oath, while the woman draws a 
long, hard breath, and turns away her head. 


68 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


Patricia Gordon is beautiful, well-born, poor and 
lazy ; and how the family lives, even from hand to 
mouth, is the transparent mystery of the country- 
side. So it goes without saying that this sole 
daughter of the house belongs to that semi-demi- 
monde., the “suspect,” whom men follow at disre- 
spectful distance and women cut upon the slightest 
occasion, making of them scape-goats for the sins 
of their copartners. To the slights she has grown 
callous, but this simply courteous greeting disturbs 
her strangely. Her cavalier is not less disturbed, 
and they spin along in silence, while the pedestrians, 
turning into a woodland foot-path, come shortly out 
upon the bluff overhanging the “ baptizin’ place.” 

November reigns in the stead of October, yet the 
soft air is full of warm, blue haze ; the woods are 
russet with flecks of fading gold; white woolly clouds 
sail slow in the bright heaven, and the soft south- 
wester seems blowing from isles of spice. The earth 
is thick-carpeted with sere grass and leaves, and our 
friends drop down upon it in most restful attitudes 
after their two-mile walk, and look with silent con- 
tentment on what is going forward. 

Baptizing has begun. “ Unc. Caleb,” the head 
preacher, stands well up to his middle in the rocky 
pool, and to him four deacons, chosen with a view to 
muscular rather than spiritual strength, conduct the 
converts, who come down to the water’s edge in 
bands of five, each attended by two “waiters” 
chosen from his closest friends. Every foot of the 
bank, each rock, stump and drifted tree-trunk, the 
over-hanging hillside, the rail-fence of the opposite 


JUSTICE . 


GO 


bottom, is crowded with an ebon throng, in shreds 
and patches and rainbow hues— with here and there 
a little knot of white beholders. 

There is constant singing — a weird, wordless 
drone, after the first verse of the baptismal hymn, 
which alone all know, is exhausted — and intermit- 
tent prayer. One brother loudly begs God to “ tilt 
the bucket of salvation, and let His glory overrun 
these thirsty souls.” Another asks for “ a good 
meal ob de Lamb’s mutton ter stop de gnawin’ ob 
de hungry toof er sin and still another wants the 
converts to be “ planted aidgeways on de straight 
rock ob ten-legged salvation.” 

The deacons have a hard time of it. The candi- 
dates are, in the main, quiet enough until the saving 
plunge is over and they are well out of “Unc. Ca- 
leb’s” hands, when “ de powerful sperit comes,” and 
they leap, shout, plunge, rear, kick, lash out wildly 
on every side, weave back, forth, sideways, in all im- 
possible contortions, and finally reach their waiters 
only at the limit of exhaustion. 

Certainly muscular Christianity finds a new and 
startling development among such as Uncle Caleb 
and his flock, though it is whispered among the 
heterodox that the pastor somewhat disapproved 
of these violent manifestations. Indeed, Uncle Ned 
says : “ If dey gits ter ra’arin’ in Caleb’s han’s, he des 
draps um ter de bottom right headfo’mos’ — an’ dat 
sobers um quick , I tell you.” 

That chosen vessel of grace, Jerry, is the first who 
dares try the hazardous experiment. Full of youth’s 
conceit, and jealous contempt for “ ole Caleb,” he 


10 


the homestretch 


waltzes into the water well upon tiptoe, and the 
pastor’s hand is scarce laid upon him ere he falls — 
limp, nerveless, ecstatic, a dead weight in his arms. 
When the preacher essays to plunge him, Jerry 
clasps him so tightly about the neck that if one goes 
under the other needs must. The prayer ceases, the 
singing dies to a faint quaver from those too far 
off to see. Uncle Caleb hesitates a minute, then, 
gathering the courage of desperation, dips with his 
burden beneath the stream so vehemently that both 
lose footing and go to the bottom, the elder, luckily, 
on top, whence he rises serene if strangled, while 
Jerry, ignominiously fished up by the deacons, is 
handed over to his waiters amid a universal laugh. 

There are forty to baptize, and, after awhile, it 
grows monotonous. Laide climbs down into a recess 
in the bluff, vailed with bushes of scarlet-berried 
spice-wood, and busies herself with the dry fronds of 
the curious resurrection fern. Godfrey joins her 
presently, and Mr. Sumner, lying at length along 
the bluff’s edge, hears him say : 

“ I think Ellis will hardly dare to face you for a 
month. I wish Lucia had been with us.” 

“ Pray heaven it be a year,” Laide answers, “ As 
to Lucia — I don’t know. She torments me some- 
times, but when I feel amicable, I think I would like 
to give him over to her — if I could.” 

“ How often is that ? — semi-occasionally ? I 
thought your resentments were immortal.” 

“This plant is their fit emblem,” showing the dry 
fronds. They wither out of sight in sunny weather, 
but given the moisture of fresh provocation spring 
into greenly-vigorous life.” 


JUSTICE. 


71 


“ What made you speak to the Gordon ?” 

“ My sense of justice.” 

“ I don’t understand.” 

“ Then let me enlighten you. Mrs. Grundy or- 
dains that I shall not ostracise Major Ellis, no matter 
how flagrant his peccadilloes, and I am cowardly 
enough to obey her. She likewise ordains that I 
shall cut dead Patricia Gordon, for sins which are, at 
least, not proven — and I am brave enough to dis- 
obey.” 

“ I see. You would give the pepper-sauce alike to 
goose and gander.” 

“ I would certainly change the present ruling, 
which shows the woman injustice without mercy, 
and lets the men go scathless.” 

“ Life is a muddle, anyway — but let’s get home. 
This performance promises to last pretty well into 
eternity.” 

“Wait until Mauma is baptized. That is what I 
came for. Poor old soul ! none of them take much 
notice of her, she is so quiet, and I shall go to shake 
hands with her when she comes out of the water, 
‘made a new critter’ as she firmly believes. You 
must go with me.” 

“ Take John instead. It strikes me you leave him 
to his own devices rather freely, considering your 
special invitation.” 

“ Mr. Sumner understood that. He has looked so 
miserably self-accusing since — since — he came from 
Dr. Ellenbrod’s,” tears in the voice in spite of her, 
“ that I wanted to show him I did not blame him 
for — the accident,” 


72 


THE HOMES TEE TCH. 


“ I haven’t dared to speak about it, Laide ; but 
I’ve bought you another horse — if you will take it.’’ 

She shakes her head. “I don’t want it.” 

“ What will you do for one ?” 

“ Ride one of yours, whenever it suits me. I like 
to owe something to people that I love.” 

For answer, Mr. Lane looks down into her eyes 
and says, slowly : “You are the best bad girl in the 
world.” 


CHAPTER IX. 


A GHOST BY DAYLIGHT. 

“ Oak has been here and left this for you,” said 
Miss Fair to Laide, upon her late return, handing 
her, as she spoke, a flat brown paper, tied with red 
worsted, and further secured by a great splash of ill- 
looking purplish wax. 

Spite of herself, Laide shuddered faintly at the 
sight. Such precautions she knew boded a “secret” 
of the first water — and Oak’s secrets were not all of 
them harmless. So, saying “ such a missive deserves 
to be read in private,” she went slowly up the stairs, 
twirling it between her fingers as she walked ; but 
once within her own door, she threw it violently 
from her, and sunk into her easy-chair, shaking with 
nervous tremor. 

That “ the happiest women, like the happiest 
nations, have no history,” was abundantly proven by 
the passionate pain of her face, as she sat regarding 
the ungainly letter lying at her feet, which, some- 
how, seemed the realization of the shadow that, ever 
since her seizure in the library, had hung above her. 

At last, with reluctant fingers, she opened it and 
read : 

“the first of novemBer.” 

“ der Laidy. i have Come see you To bring you 
this letTer. I went to coat House yistidy, and mis- 
ter riMmer you Useter like so mulch is Thair, but 

73 


74 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


Wont hurt you enny More, he is a Widder noW. 
want to See you verry Bad, but will not hurt 
you, i made Him Promus. you mus go down To 
mauma’s house 5 clock this evening, he will Bee 
thair but will not hurt you. i like mister rimmer — 
gives me whole dollar to write This toe you. but 
Mister Summer’s got a good Watch, no more tell i 
di. your fren, oaK ellenbrod.” 

Laide read it through without moan or flinching, 
though she would rather have met Death than Fritz 
Raimund. He came into her life when she was just 
turned seventeen. Handsome, brilliant, fascinating, 
a high-bred man of the world, three short weeks suf- 
ficed to win for him her tropical fervor of first love — 
and the first inkling her unastute guardians had of 
the matter was when Godfrey, coming one day sud- 
denly upon them, found his cousin close-clasped in 
Raimund’s arms, while he drank long maddening 
kisses from her yielded lips. From this sprang in- 
stant seclusion for Laide, and a journey of investiga- 
tion for Godfrey, and when he came back with no 
definite knowledge of good and fearful rumors of 
evil, that it was somehow impossible to substantiate, 
the girl, who was eating her heart out in silence and 
loneliness, and pining for her lover every minute of 
the day, managed to send him, through Oak, a 
passionate, madly-trusting woman’s letter. It is still 
hers — a sort of talisman of unfaith, and taking it 
from a drawer, so long unopened its fastening is 
a-rust, she read : 


“ My Own Dear Love : Godfrey is home at 


A GHOST BY DAYLIGHT. 


75 


last, with a budget of emptiness and corresponding 
wrath. I do not wonder that other men hate you, 
they have such cause of envy ; but I am sorry God- 
frey should so lower himself. The gist of his accu- 
sation is, that somewhere, in some undiscovered 
country — the glimpses of the moon, most likely — 
you are thought to have a wife already ; and unless 
you will solemnly swear to the contrary, and dis- 
prove by competent testimony this thing which no- 
body knows, I am not to be allowed to speak to, or 
even see you ever again. 

“ Forgive me for writing it. It looks so vile, I am 
tempted to burn the sheet. I heard them through, 
and then — I startled them. I told them that you, 
the soul of honor, the mirror and pattern of truth, 
for whom no name but your own is honorable 
enough, should never be subjected to such humilia- 
tion — that I belonged to you, soul and body, and 
trusted you to the faintest fibre of my being — that I 
would follow to the world’s end for your lightest 
word — and though law, gospel and guardians sought 
to sunder us, Love would keep us together until the 
end of time. I meant it — every word. I am yours 
forever — if you want me — and I am rather too vain to 
have a doubt of that. I will come to you anywhere, 
at any time. “ Your Own — and Yours Only, 

“Laide. 

“To Fritz Raimund, Esq., 

“ Court House.” 

Be not shocked over this abandoned effusion, O 
gentle reader ! The child who wrote it felt only in 


76 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


her mad pain of loving that love was threatened 
with loss. Certainly that child, now grown a woman 
of bravest mould, cowered piteously at the uncover- 
ing of this burning folly, and took up the writing 
with which it came back to her as though the poison 
of asps lay in its yellowed folds. It was easily read, 
a clear, bold and masculine hand, and ran thus : 

“ Court House, Oct. 18, . 

“ My Little Darling : Let me tell you a story 
— not a pleasant one, but one that you have need to 
know. Years ago there lived a man, old, rich, fire- 
hearted, iron-willed, with one dominant passion — the 
upholding, after death should claim him, of his 
riches and his name. His two sons had died young, 
leaving each a child, the one a son, the other a 
daughter; and these children the grandfather 
brought up to know that from their cradles they 
were foredoomed to each other. The boy grew up 
an ordinary lad, but the girl had, even in babyhood, 
a strange, far-away look, and as the passing years 
brought her to womanhood, kept still her baby 
beauty, and developed only a baby’s intelligence. 
Her father, the younger and best-loved son, had 
been a hopeless inebriate, and the innocent child 
answered fearfully for his sin — but to this the grand- 
father willfully shut his eyes. She was the one thing 
living that he loved — besides, he said, grimly, she 
had just sense enough to be a good wife. Women 
who had brains always put them to bad uses. In her 
the heart of her husband might safely trust, for she 
would never know how to circumvent him. So he 
held unfalteringly to his purpose, and drew up a 


A GHOST BY DAYLIGHT. 


77 


will, giving his grandson his whole large fortune, 
upon the sole condition that upon his twenty-first 
birthday he should marry his cousin — to whom, if he 
failed of compliance, the fortune would lapse ; and 
if she proved likewise contumacious, then it went to 
the most un-deserving charity in the United States. 
Yet even this did not satisfy him. Very shortly the 
boy was summoned from college, and told that the 
marriage must be instantly celebrated. No reason 
was given beyond the imperious, ‘ I will it,’ but the 
habit of years was too strong to be broken, and in 
obedient unconcern the boy bound himself for life. 
Throughout the ceremony the old man sat propped 
in his easy chair, a cynical smile about his thin lips, 
though of the few witnesses, those closest him 
noticed that his breath came almost in gasps. At 
the close, the poor child-woman bent down to kiss 
him, who was never stern to her, and fell back faint- 
ing when her lips pressed those of a corpse. She 
rallied from the fainting fit in strong convulsions, 
and when, at length, they ceased, she had sunk from 
imbecile to idiot. Her husband, who felt for her 
only a very pitiful compassion, gave her into the 
keeping of a faithful nurse, saw to it that she had 
every comfort and luxury, and then, after complet- 
ing his interrupted college course, began wandering 
to and fro, and roaming up and down, resolved to 
forget as far as possible the clog fettering his life. 
So wandering, he has seen many fair lands, and fair- 
er women ; but until you crossed his vision, none 
ever moved him to m6re than a passing admiration. 
Of course you know whose is the miserable story. It 


78 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


ought to have been told in the beginning ; but from 
the first I loved you, and what man has the courage 
to thrust himself from Paradise ? Even now I might 
lack it, did not the depth of your pure love and 
stainless trust shame all the manhood in me 
and make me hate the craven I have proved. The 
strife has been fearful — the temptation almost too 
great — to take you from all your world and keep 
you forever safe-shielded in my love. But O ! my 
darling, I dare not. The soul of your love is Honor; 
and found wanting in that, I should infallibly lose 
you, though daily and nightly you were held to my 
heart. 

“ How much I love you, God only knows — far too 
well to do you so fearful a wrong. I will not say 
forgive me, for I do not deserve it. I cannot say 
forget me, for, indeed, I could not bear it. To 
love and leave you is a better fate than the win- 
ning of any other in all God’s world. I shall go 
away immediately. I ought not to see you again, 
and will not even keep your precious letter, for I 
could not destroy it ; and some day you may forget 
me sufficiently to wish it unwritten. Would to Heaven 
all the pain of this might fall to him whom Fate al- 
lots to be only 

“ Always, Your Friend, 

“ Fritz Raimund. 

“To Miss Laide Travers.” 

True to his word, Raimund went away. Neither 
by nature nor habit was he the villain that he 
seemed, and his conscience smote him sharply for 
the part he had played. Indeed, Laide herself might 


A GHOST BY DAYLIGHT . 


79 


almost have forgiven him, had she been able to look 
into his heart and see there the passion of longing for 
her face, her voice, her touch, and the vivid desola- 
tion that went with him in his voluntary exile. But 
that was impossible, and, poor child, the bitterness 
of Death was honey by comparison with what she 
tasted when Love, Hope and Faith burnt out to 
blackest ashes in the letter’s enlightening flame. 
Snatching it from Oak’s extended hand, she read it 
unfalteringly to the end, then, locking both letters 
in her desk’s most secret drawer, she went, with 
hands held hard above her heart, down into her 
guardian’s presence and startled him with the piteous 
cry, “ I want to go out of the world, but not through 
this gate of pain. Help me, please, to die easy.” 

For a while it seemed indeed as though death 
needs must come with each recurring spasm, but 
youth and intense vitality baffled him ; and after six 
months of invalidism, and two years of convent 
school, Laide Travers again took up the burden of 
life among her kind, and bore in it a part not ill-be- 
fitting her name and race. Happily, knowledge of 
her mad story was confined to four people, and even 
through Oak gossip got no hold of it. Mrs. Ellen- 
brod was equally discreet and incurious, and what- 
ever she saw or suspected, said never a word. She 
was fond, too, of Laide, after her dumb fashion, and 
materially helped the world to believe her illness 
due to severe fright. 

What Laide suffered only God’s angels know. 
After that first wild prayer for death, there was no 
further moan or outcry. Stained love and shattered 


80 


THE HOMESTRETCH 


faith found the oblivion of silence, and later on, when 
men began to hover about her like bees about some 
delicate honey-flower, Godfrey often thought her 
heart from the fire of passion had come out steel, so 
unmoved and immovable did she seem to all comers. 
Of all her crowding lovers, none ever dared to touch 
her until John Sumner’s audacious clasping recalled 
the ghost of that dead time, and with it the old 
pain, for so long well banished. 

It almost came back again as she sat and pon- 
dered over Oak’s epistle. Why Fritz Raimund 
should come back to disturb her after all these nine 
years she could not understand. Thank God he had 
no hold on her. The hateful letter was safely hers. 
Should she meet him and have done with it, or ig- 
nore him altogether — that was the thing to be de- 
termined. 

An hour later Godfrey met her, and when he 
would have stopped her for a minute’s jest she ran 
past him, with, “I can’t stop. It’s getting late, and 
I must see Mauma to-night.” 


CHAPTER X. 

A-OUTRANCE. 

The west was all aflame as Laide hurried for- 
ward, and its red glow lent to her pallid features the 
lost rose of youth. Mauma’s cabin stood in shel- 
ter of the hill, well out of sight and hearing of the 
house. Back of it ran a ferny hollow with a fair 
spring at its foot, and it was there Laide felt in- 
stinctively she should find her enemy ; but such 
was her horror of the shame of lying, that she went 
within and spoke kindly, if briefly, to her loving old 
nurse. 

“ Oak said gib you dat when you come. I hopes 
he aint a’ter no mischief,” said the old woman, 
handing her “ child ” a slip of coarse wrapping- 
paper with a red pencil scrawl, “down Toe spring.” 
Laide thrust it deep in the fire’s red heart, then went 
without a word adown the southward path, well 
knowing that Mauma would much sooner question 
the ways of Providence than those of her nurseling. 

Down in the hollow a man paced slowly back and 
forth. He was lithe, well-made, of goodly stature, 
and grandly handsome, with a sort of leonine beauty, 
upon which time had as yet set no marring seal. 
However bitterly Laide might repent and be 
ashamed of that early episode, the most captious 
could not blame her taste in the outer man. When 
she came in view, he went rapidly toward her, with 
81 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


bared head and outstretched hand, but her imperi- 
ous gesture stopped him short, as she said in a voice 
of cut steel: 

“ You wished to see me — and I am here.” 

The red light sifting through the trees fell around 
her like a halo, her eyes were starry in their dark 
dilation, and as she stood framed in wreaths of 
russet-yellow oak boughs, it seemed to Fritz Rai- 
mund as though they had parted yesterday, and the 
long years were a dream. 

“ Is it possible ‘ a rose may shut and be a bud 
again’?” he said, moving slightly nearer. “You 
are not a day older than when we pah:ed.” 

“ I hope I am slightly wiser.” 

“I am sorry that you have no word of welcome 
for me.” The musical voice had a wondrously gen- 
tle intonation. 

“ Why should I have ? ” 

“ Because I am free now — and at last we may be 
happy.” 

“ ‘ Happy ! ’” Words cannot measure the passion- 
ate contempt of Laide’s tone, as her face went down 
into her hands to hide the spasm of pain which dis- 
torted it. 

“Very happy, I hope. I have never ceased to 
love you, and keeping myself informed about you, 
have been vain enough to think that perhaps I had 
something to do with your fastidious coldness to all 
other lovers. Is it not so, Snow Flower ? ” 

At sound of the old pet name Laide shrank as 
from a blow, but steadying herself against the tree 
trunk asked, without raising her head: 


A-OUTRANCE. 


83 


“ Have you anything further to say ? ” 

“A great deal, if I said all that is in my heart. 
But why are you so strangely cold ? Surely you are 
not angry that I loved and left you. A man of 
honor could do no less,” trying to take away the 
veiling hands. 

Laide sprang away from him as she might have 
done from the evil one himself, and her answer came 
with the icy sling of hail: 

“You! You! to name such words as love and 
honor. I wonder they do not blister your tongue. 
And happiness with you, when I cannot draw an 
unstifled breath in air that you pollute. As to 
my ‘ coldness,’ you are mistakenly right — for you 
made me esteem all men’s loving so vile. I tossed 
it from me as I might a poison flower. You killed 
my soul, and almost my body, and now you marvel 
that I do not fling myself into your arms.” 

“The marvel is, that your love has died. Women 
are supposed to be constancy’s self; and you will 
not deny that you did love me once ?” 

“To my everlasting shame, I cannot. Yes, I 
loved you with a child’s trust and a woman’s devo- 
tion, thinking you, as I did, the very sum and pat- 
tern and miracle of honor, truth, and nobleness.” 

“May I ask what made you change an estimate 
so flattering ? I know I wronged you — but not so 
bitterly as I might have done.” 

His words brought the scarlet into Laide’s face, 
but she faced him steadily, and crushing back her 
pride, answered coldly: 

“ Opinions differ. My creed is doubtless simple 


84 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


and outworn, but I was taught to believe that the 
man who, married to one woman, dares even to 
think of loving another, is neither more nor less 
than a scoundrel.” 

Her defiant beauty moved him as her surrendered 
youthful loveliness had never done. His breath 
came hard, and liquid fire ran through his veins. 
He drew back a pace or two, and bowing lowly, 
said: 

“Time has indeed taught you to be wise. The 
charm of the unattainable was all you ever lacked, 
and that you have acquired almost too well. I 
came here, solely because I have loved you only 
through all these years; a time long enough to have 
loved and forgotten a score of other women. God 
knows I do not mean to excuse my action in the 
past, but if you will let me, all the future shall answer 
for it.” 

“ Eternity would not suffice to answer for it.” 

“ Why are you so bitter ? Surely you know that 
my wife was naught save an incumbrance, forced 
upon me almost ere I came to man’s estate — before 
I had any realization of what the tie meant. I kept 
her comfortable and happy all her poor clouded 
life, but loved her only as I might have done a lame 
dog or a hurt sparrow, that chance had thrown upon 
my care. All other women save yourself have been 
but idle fancies or passing passions, that vanished 
like the memory of last year’s rain. You are the 
one love of my life, the only woman I have loved 
too well to harm; and surely when you remember 
that , you will not send me away desolate ? ” 


A-OUTRA.YCR. 


85 


Laide raised her sad eyes slowly to his, saying 
softly: 

“Do you think it is no harm to make life a bur- 
den of shameful memories ? I was so young — just 
seventeen — and if you saved me from actual ruin, 
you gave me knowledge bitterer than death, of how 
sinful love might be.” 

“ Love like yours was never sinful. All the wrong 
was mine.” 

“ Perhaps — but can you walk through mire with- 
out defilement ? ” 

“ Laide,” he said, the ring of passion coming into 
his voice, “ Forget all that miserable time, and give 
me back your heart, and my life shall answer for it 
if I do not make you the happiest woman in God’s 
fair world. You were made for loving, and if you 
have forgotten, surely you can learn the sweet les- 
son anew.” 

“‘Violets plucked, the sweetest showers can ne’er 
make bloom again,’” she said, with a bitter, ghostly 
smile. 

“ You will not even try to love me ? ” 

“No; and I should despise myself beyond meas- 
ure if I thought it possible ever to hate you less 
than I do at this minute.” 

He looked at her with a half-smile and said slowly: 
“ When you are my wife, Laide, I will be magnani- 
mous, and not demand a formal retraction of all 
this.” 

“ Doubtless — when I am your wife — as that per- 
son seems to be the object of your sublimest indif- 
ference.” 


86 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


“ It is useless to say such things. They cannot 
change my purpose in the least.” 

“ Indeed. What is that ?” 

“To win you in spite of yourself — and Mr. Sumner.” 

“ If you live until you do it, you are likely to rival 
Methuselah.” 

For answer he bent and looked long and search- 
ingly into her brave uplifted eyes, then said very 
slowly: 

“ Go home now, my dear Lady Disdain. I will 
not be angry, no matter what you say ; but try to 
remember, just for one minute, how you loved me, 
and perhaps you will not be so merciless when next 
we meet.” 

Without further farewell Laide went away, 
though the deadly numbing pain at her heart made 
motion such torture that she walked as one might 
who reels from long illness, and it was only by pain- 
ful clinging to the zigzag fence that she man- 
aged to overcome the hill’s ascent. Half way up she 
stopped, spent and breathless, and there Mr. Sum- 
ner, indulging in an unwonted twilight stroll, at 
length found her. Trails of purple brier and feathery 
clematis waved about her, and low, late asters made 
white constellations at her feet, while the flooding 
light of a red new-risen moon made plain the pitiful 
pallor of her face. Else he would have passed on, 
with barest recognition, so great was his fear of un- 
timely intrusion ; but so seeing her, he could not, 
but stopped short, his eyes full of the appeal he 
could not put into words. She understood it, and 
held out her hands to him. 


A- OVTRANCE. 


8 ? 

“ Please help me home,” she said ; “ I have walked 
too much to-day, and am fairly overspent.” 

“ I feared so, from your face,” taking her hands 
reverently, though longing to kiss them. She locked 
them over his strong right arm, and, leaning heavily 
toward him, they went along in silence. Half way 
home he tried to draw her closer. “Let me carry 
you,” he entreated. “ You tremble so, I cannot bear 
to feel it, and know that I might save you from ex- 
ertion.” 

“ I — hope — it will not — come to that,” was all she 
could answer, though, after a little space, she took 
away her hands, saying : “ It is over now, but I have 
not breath to thank you — yet.” 

“You owe me no thanks,” very humbly; “but 
some day, when I can show you I deserve it, I hope 
you will try to forgive me.” 

Miss Travers looked at him steadily, then turned 
away without a word. For once in life she was 
fairly sick of conquest. 


CHAPTER XI. 

CASH — OR BARTER. 

MORNING came without a memory of sunlight, 
warm, wet and lowering, with the faintest possible 
south wind. The fading leaves fell rapidly down, 
over-weighted with soft tears of mist, while late 
roses and chrysanthemums bent their heads like be- 
lated fairies whom the sun has surprised at their 
revels. 

All sportsmen know and love such days; for then 
exertion is delight, the scent lies strong and burn- 
ing, and the wet whirring covey take not the long 
skimming flights that, upon a fair day, so often bear 
them past range or finding. No wonder, then, albe- 
it Godfrey was again a civic victim, Mr. Sumner 
went afield with Rex for sole companion. The dog 
had grown fond of him as practice bettered his aim, 
and now followed his call as readily as his master’s. 
Laide did not again volunteer her presence, and, 
heretical as it may seem, Mr. Sumner was glad of it. 
A leopard may as easily change his spots as a man 
his prejudice of training, and Laide’s taste for sport 
could never cease to be dissatisfying to this one of 
her adorers, whose ideal of womanhood, I somewhat 
fear, was a compound of attar of rose and imbecility. 
Certainly Mrs. John Sumner, whoever she might be, 
would never indulge in unconventionality without 
the sturdiest opposition from her husband ; but no 


CASH -OR BARTER. 


89 


such thought was in his mind as he tramped along. 
Two hours in twenty-four are about all that any 
man will surrender to sentiment, and Mr. Sumner 
had lost full that amount of sleep in turning over in 
his own mind the meaning of Miss Travers’ stead- 
fast look and silent withdrawal. Did it mean com- 
prehension and forgiveness, or wiliest coquetry ? — 
that was the point he could not decide. The woman 
he had disbelieved in, and the woman he loved, were, 
somehow, still curiously distinct entities within his 
mind, and refused, in spite of him, to commingle. 
“ Love to woman is a history, to man an episode 
and while a woman in such case would inevitably 
have renewed the debate, not only upon this day, 
but upon many others, Mr. Sumner much more wise- 
ly gave his whole mind to the business in hand, and 
spent his powder so effectually that, by noontide, the 
pockets of his shooting coat were fairly overweighted 
with fur and feathers, and himself an embodiment of 
damp delight. 

He had wandered widely away from Eastbrook, 
and now turned his steps toward it, with a thrill of 
anticipation. At breakfast, Laide was invisible, and 
though he had spent the morning in comfortable un- 
consciousness of*her sway, the thought of her, as he 
would see her in the firelight’s flickering glow, 
quickened his pulse in spite of him, and made him 
well nigh oblivious of a figure crouched in shelter of 
clustered hazels. As he passed, it sprang upright, 
and Oak’s voice cried, in abject terror : 

“ Don’t shoot ! don’t shoot ! I — I — I was jes’ fun- 
nin’ ’bout a hundred dollars, a hundred dollars. 


90 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


Y-y-you may have it for a quarter then, shading 
his weak eyes with one shaking hand, “as I live it’s 
— it’s t’other feller.” 

“ For whom did you take me ?” asked Mr. Sumner. 
“You would not seem more scared by Death itself. 
Has anybody threatened you ?” 

Oak was silent, mopping the beaded perspiration 
from his forehead, and shifting uneasily upon his 
feet. At last he said, with a quick furtive leer, hold- 
ing out his handkerchief as he spoke : 

“ I’ve been tradin’, been tradin’. Give my ban- 
danna for this, and fifty cents to boot, to boot. 
Think I got cheated bad ?” 

“ Not at all,” mentally contrasting the ragged 
“bandanna,” which was once the property of “ Uncle 
Caleb,” with the square of finest cambric fluttering 
from Oak’s fingers. 

“ Is them letters, letters ? Sometimes they look 
like it, and then again they twist around and stand 
on their heads, stand on their heads,” pointing to a 
faint embroidery in one corner, which Mr. Sumner’s 
clearer gaze and comprehension soon resolved into 
the monogram F. R. 

“ F. R. Whose initials are those? Anyway, you 
cheated him pretty badly.” 

“ Cheat him worse ’an that ’fore long, ’fore long,” 
cried Oak, beamingly, highly elated at this compli- 
ment to his sagacity. “ Somethin’ else for him here, 
for him here,” tapping the pocket of his weather- 
faded coat, setting his head aside and grinning hor- 
ribly. 

“ Who is he ?” 


CAstr—ok barter. 


Oi 


“ Mr. Reimmer, Mr. Reimmer. Come here when 
I was a boy — gentleman, too. Gimme a whole bag 
of marbles, bag of marbles. You must go ’long now; 
he’s coming here presently, and he don’t want to see 
you.” 

“Why not?” 

“ Don’t want to see nobody. I’d agone to the 
Court House, but he said not, said not.” 

“ What does he want ?” 

“ One of my secrets, worth a hundred dollars, 
hundred dollars,” screwing his face into an expres- 
sion of preternatural shrewdness ; then, seeming to 
catch suddenly a most brilliant idea, “ b’leeve I’ll 
show it to you. Maybe you’ll want it, too. It’s ’bout 
Laide, ’bout Laide.” 

“ Does she know ‘ Mr. Reimmer’?” 

“ Pretty well, pretty well. She wanted to marry 
him, but he wouldn’t have her, and it made her sick, 
made her sick.” 

Mr. Sumner was growing interested. Up to this 
point he had not dreamed that anything serious 
might lie under Oak’s chatter. Now he felt it be- 
hooved him to look warily into the matter, so he 
said, with a carelessness he was far from feeling : 

“ Do show it to me, Oak. Even if I don’t bid for 
it, I should really like to see a secret worth a hun- 
dred dollars ; but how came you by it ?” 

Oak grinned until the genius of the grotesque 
would himself have been shamed. “ I carried the 
letters — always do for Laide — and he went away 
and left me, and I copied the pretty writing, pretty 
writing.” 


92 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


“ Let me see it.” 

Oak looked all about him, went a few steps from 
the thicket’s edge to peer across the wide field, and, 
coming back, satisfied of isolation, thrust his hand 
deep into his innermost pocket and brought out a 
huge envelope, once brilliant with loves, doves, 
hearts and darts — a fragment of his old-time salvage 
from Laide’s flotsam of valentines, and still showing 
her name in somewhat faded letters. It was one of 
Oak’s most cherished possessions, and a glimmer of 
clouded conscience had made him choose it for this 
special delivery, meaning thus to lessen as much as 
he might the, to him, immense difference between 
the promised hundred dollars and the bits of paper 
within the gaudy receptacle. Of their import or 
value he had not the slightest comprehension. 
Once assured by “ Mr. Reimmer” that he would not 
“ hurt Laide,” he was only too eager to “ trade” him 
the copied letters, which the latter sought to obtain 
for no worse purpose than to secure Laide against 
the hurtful misconception inevitable if once they fell 
under careless or malicious eyes. Indeed he had 
fairly shuddered at thought of her unknown peril, 
when, after the close of their interview, Oak crept 
out from ambush and accosted him, “I say, she’s 
’bout forgot you, ’bout forgot you. Don’t you reckon 
she’d remember you if you had her letter, had her 
letter?” and, after a few sharp questions had put 
him in possession of the facts, he readily promised 
Oak the hundred dollars which he demanded, little 
dreaming that a deed so undeniably excellent could 
ever make weight against him — for how could he 


CASH— OR BARTER. 


93 


know that Oak would be so far ahead of time and, 
reaching the rendezvous at ten instead of two 
o’clock, would be tempted by weariness into giving 
his social nitro-glycerine into other hands, and so 
letting a rival’s jaundiced eyes make of his honest 
attempt at protection at once an insult and a threat. 

Untying the string, which, to him, was the sym- 
bol of security, Oak unfolded wide the envelope’s 
contents, and said, handing them to Mr. Sumner : 

“See there, see there. Can’t write much, but I 
can copy,” and looking, the beholder saw what he 
could almost have sworn to, as Laide’s clear, flowing 
hand, perfect in line and curve, and so distinct that 
almost before he knew what he was doing he had 
gathered all the meaning, and stood so appalled 
that he did not laugh even when Oak thrust the 
other letter under his nose, saying : 

“ Beats your writing ; your’s is just rabbit-tracks, 
rabbit-tracks, in the snow you know ; saw it when 
you wrote to Godfrey, wrote to Godfrey.” 

Mr. Sumner read it with hard breath, clinching 
hands, and a sudden overwhelming sense, that life 
would hold henceforth an aching void unless he 
could somehow throttle the scoundrel who had dared 
so to profane a pearl. At any cost, he would baffle 
him, so, with strong effort, he said, lightly : 

“ That’s a fact, Oak, my writing is horrible ; but 
let me have these to copy from, and see if I can’t 
improve.” 

“ Got any money, any money ? He promised me 
a hundred dollars, but I’ll take ten if he don’t come, 
if he don’t come.” 


94 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


Mr. Sumner reached towards his pockets, then 
stood aghast, suddenly remembering that in putting 
on his hunting suit he had laid aside his pocket- 
book and forgotten to take it up. 

“I’ll give you a hundred, if you’ll come for it to- 
morrow. I haven’t a cent with me as it happens,” 
he said at last. 

Oak laughed shrilly, and clutched his prize the 
tighter. 

“ I trade for cash, always cash ; best way. T’other 
feller’s got money, showed me heaps, and he won’t 
hurt Laide, hurt Laide.” 

“ I tell you he will,” said Mr. Sumner, almost be- 
side himself. “ He will break her heart and take her 
away where you will never see her, unless you carry 
these miserable papers straight to her, as you ought 
to have done years ago. No man ever sells a lady’s 
secret.” 

“You wanted to buy, wanted to buy,” said Oak, 
with pertinent sarcasm. 

“If I did, it was only to keep it from making her 
trouble ; but if you are bent on selling, why not give 
her a chance ? She might out-bid either of us.” 

Oak began to whimper obstinately. 

“ I — I’m afraid. She laughed when I stole Tanty’s 
sugar, but she never caught you stealin’ a bird’s nest, 
and looked at you so,” with a ludicrous effort to draw 
himself into an attitude of supreme disapproval. 

“ Does she know you have these things ?”• 

“ No. I told him I had them, I had them. I — I 
watched, not to let him hurt her, and he never 
touched her ; but I believe he made her cry, made 
her cry.” 


CASH— OR BARTER. 


95 


“When ?” The monosyllable was all Mr. Sumnef 
could trust himself to utter. 

“ In the hollow, last night.” 

“ Oak,” in a tone of praiseworthy cajolery, “ come, 
be a good fellow ; take the papers to Miss Travers, 
and you may keep my gun as security until I pay the 
money.” 

Oak recoiled at least five feet. 

“Wouldn’t touch it, wouldn’t touch it,” he cried, 
in high staccato. “ You want to kill me, want to kill 
me, anyway.” 

“ If you were sane, I would be tempted to do it,” 
Mr. Sumner said between his teeth, then, somewhat 
ashamed of his anger, “but indeed I won’t hurt you, 
and if you will go with me to the Court House I will 
get you any sum you may ask for those cursed 
letters.” 

Oak eyed him doubtfully for a minute, then shook 
his head. 

“We’d meet t’other feller; ought to be here now. 
What time is it ?” 

Mr. Sumner drew out his watch with a thrill of in- 
tense thanksgiving. From their earliest meeting it 
had been the object of Oak’s supremest veneration, 
and for it he would doubtless give up the vast 
possibilities of a hundred dollars. He held it out, 
saying, “one o’clock,” then; with affected careless- 
ness, “I’d offer to trade you this, Oak, only I know 
Tom would make you give it back.” 

“ He shan’t see it. I’ll hide it ; hide it in my 
horse’s belly, my horse’s belly,” Oak cried, stretch- 
ing out eager hands and thrusting the papers on Mr. 


96 


THE HOMESTRETCH 


Sumner, who stood dangling the watch back and 
forth and twisting the chain about his fingers, while 
his mind ran over the best use to be made of this un- 
expected victory. 

To relieve Laide of all need for apprehension, yet 
in such a manner that his interference should be un- 
dreamed of, was the problem in hand. After a while 
he said : 

“You shall have it, Oak, by doing exactly as I 
tell you. There, take it, and put it in the bottom of 
your deepest pocket, then carry that envelope to- 
Miss Travers and tell her that you will give those 
letters up to nobody but her, for fear of making her 
trouble.” 

“ And show her the watch ?” 

“ Not unless you want me to shoot you ; besides, 
she might tell Tom. You must not even wear it 
until I am out of this country. But, as I was saying, 
you must tell her she need not fear Raimund. No ; 
she will not be angry,” as Oak again showed signs of 
fear; “ but, instead, very grateful. Go straight on 
now. You must be there and away before I get 
back. I shall give you three hundred yards the start 
of me.” 

“You’ll keep Reimmer off, keep Reimmer off? 
You know I promised him, and he shoots too, shoots 
too.” 

“ Keep at home until he leaves the country. Tom 
will not let him come there, and you will be safe if 
you go away before he comes.” 

Oak needed no second bidding, but set off at a 
round pace. 


CASH— OR BARTER. 


97 


Fifteen minutes later a horseman came in sight, 
and, despite his jealous pain, Mr. Sumner admitted 
to himself that a goodlier person seldom rode among 
press of knights. No wonder Laide was fastidious, 
when her first love-lesson was taught by this thor- 
oughbred in bronze, whom, however, he could shoot 
with right good will, as he rode smiling and debon- 
nair to the appointed place of meeting.” 

“ If you are Mr. Raimund, Oakley Ellenbrod bade 
me tell you that he cannot, or will not, keep his ap- 
pointment,” Mr. Sumner said, bowing, as the other 
drew rein ; and Mr. Raimund returned the obeis- 
ance with interest in answering : 

“ I am unfortunate, but shall try one day to re- 
compense, as it deserves , Mr. Sumner’s exceeding 
courtesy in my behalf.” 

Then again lifting his hat, he rode away more 
downcast by this new complication than by all 
Laide’s heaped-up scorn. That his purpose in com- 
ing hither had become known to Mr. Sumner, he 
could not doubt, and the inference which he would 
draw and Godfrey would share, could not fail to 
be that he had sought to gain the letters for Laide’s 
annoyance, when, indeed, if they would only believe 
it, in all the world she had no stauncher friend than 
he. Still he would not give her up ; only a wed- 
ding ring or a coffin lid could make him do that. 
As they say out West, “ He had sand.” 

Mr. Sumner was but faintly classical, but along 
his homeward way he muttered once or twice aloud: 
“ Apollo and Apolyon. No wonder she distains 
mere mortals.” 


CHAPTER XII. 


THANK OFFERINGS. 

Mr. RAIMUND rightly thought that his transactions 
with Oak would be cruelly misjudged by Laide and 
her cousin. They sat together over the fire in God- 
frey’s den as night fell wild and wet, and talked long 
and freely of the perilous might-have-been. Neither 
doubted that Raimund’s purpose had been to terrify 
Laide, at least, into tolerance, and though had the 
danger really threatened, she would have faced it in 
silence, the joy of rescue loosed her tongue, and 
Godfrey’s fingers fairly tingled for a grip on her tor- 
mentor. His love for Laide, while not exactly 
brotherly, was single hearted and free of passion, 
such a feeling as is possible to hardly one man of 
ten thousand. She was not his model of woman- 
hood, but I very much question whether that shad- 
owy personage made manifest in flesh and blood 
would have evoked a feeling so warm and pure as 
that he gave the wayward cousin, who was, in all 
things, his good comrade, and to whose generous in- 
stincts he knew he owed his uncle’s bequest of East- 
brook and its wide and fair demesne. So it is no 
wonder his heart was full of anger for the man who, 
he thought, would have dealt her both hurt and hu- 
miliation, and wondering thankfulness over Oak’s 
change of heart. The poor fellow, after all, was 
more capable of gratitude than many who laughed 


THANIC OFFERINGS. 


99 


his poor wits to scorn. Laide deserved it though. 
It was for such as she — not faultless, but noble in 
spite of grievous errors — that men have died gladly 
ever since the world began. Her softened face 
showed wonderfully lovely in the fireshine, and there 
was a pathetic tired cadence in the clear, low voice. 
After a little space of silence she said : 

“You must promise me one thing, Godfrey.” 

“ What is it ?” 

“ Not to quarrel with that man, come what may. 
I am not worth it, and I feel instinctively that, 
though he is balked of his weapon, he will not re- 
linquish his purpose.” 

“ I can’t promise, for if he dares to worry or speak 
ill of you, log-chains couldn’t keep my hands off 
him.” 

“ You must promise. I shall be wofully unhappy 
until you do. My folly weighs heavily enough al- 
ready without involving you. If harm came to you, 
I could not bear it.” 

“ If I promise not to quarrel with him about you, 
will you give me leave to do it on other sufficient 
provocation ?” 

“No, for you would quarrel with the cut of his 
hair, or the color of his coat, if you could not rid me 
of him otherwise.” 

“ The dragon’s teeth are drawn ; let’s say no 
more about him. What are you going to do this 
next fortnight ?” 

“ Why do you ask ?” 

“ I want you to go away for a while.” 

“ I cannot.” 


100 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


“Why not?" 

“ I have something to do.” 

“ What is it ?” 

“To make my thank offerings.” 

“ Do you mean to Oak ? I’ll attend to that ; will 
give him whatever he fancies this next five years, 
and trade knives whenever he likes into the bar- 
gain.” 

“ All very well, but I don’t mean Oak,” beginning 
to smile as she spoke. 

“ Then what the blazes do you mean ? Surely 
not to found the sisterhood Milkway is so anxious to 
establish, and go about in a poke bonnet and flannel 
night-gown for the good of your soul ?” 

“ Not exactly that ; but I am going to renounce 
the world, the flesh and the devil in a different way.” 

“ In what shape, I pray you tell ?” 

“ If I must be specific, that of my various adorers.” 

“Modesty! where is thy blush ? How many do you 
claim, I would like to know ?” 

“ None ; but some have affection, no less than 
greatness, thrust upon them.” 

“ Where will you begin ?”. 

“With Mr. Milkway, whom I shall quietly but 
firmly let know that he can no longer indulge a 
lively hope of devoting me and my fortune to 
charity.” 

“Poor fellow! No doubt he thinks you would 
make a stunning missionary. What next ?” 

“ Major Ellis’ dismissal, and, if I can manage it, 
his transfer to Lucia, though Patricia Gordon has 
really the juster claim.” 


THANK OFFERINGS. 


101 


“ Magnanimity’s self is outdone, and I wait with 
bated breath for the next decapitation.” 

“ It will be somewhat a holocaust — a baker’s dozen 
in all the moods and tenses — but, luckily, none of 
them have it very badly.” 

“ What other woman would admit so much ?” 

“ I can’t say ; I only wish it were all well over.” 

“ You do not mention Mr. Sumner. Am I to infer 
from your silence that he is reserved to keep your 
hand in ; or have you at last ‘ made up your mind to 
marry him ?’ ” 

“ I wish him a better fate. I shall never marry 
anybody, but subside into a paragon of spinster- 
hood and stay here to torment you.” 

“ That is nonsense ; and as to a ‘ better fate,’ it 
would puzzle you to get it up, if his opinion goes for 
anything.” 

“ I am as sorry as the vanity of woman will let me 
be that he cares for me at all. Cecil is a much better 
woman. 

“ And you mean to make him over to her ?” 

“ That is my best purpose.” 

“ I see. You are like the woman who said, in 
class-meeting, ‘ When she found her ribbons, feath- 
ers and flowers were sinking her soul to perdition, 
she took them off, and gave them to her sister .’ ” 

“ My case exactly. I am less weary of the pomps 
and vanities of conquest than of most other things, so 
choose them above all my other pet sins for sacrifice.” 

“ Do you really care for nobody ?” 

“ I love one man very much,” looking frankly into 
his eyes as she spoke. 


102 


THE HOMESTRETCH 


“Thank you ; but what I meant was, have you 
never loved any man since ” 

“Since I parted with Fritz Raimund,” seeing her 
cousin hesitate. “ No. My heart was all burnt out 
in that volcanic passion. All men since have been 
merely the pawns of my social chess-board, and I 
played the game less for victory than for distrac- 
tion.” 

“ Have you no compunctious visitings of con- 
science for the havoc you have wrought ?” 

“ None whatever. It did not hurt them. ‘Men 
were deceivers ever/ and will swear to love you for 
an eternity, when they mean three weeks. Mr. 
Milkway will accept my decision with pious resigna- 
tion, and straightway devote himself to the next 
richest woman within range ; and just fancy, if you 
can, Jupiter Tonans suffering the pangs of heart 
break.” 

“To all his sufferings I say ‘Amen’ with right 
good will. It has worried me no end to see him 
dangle about you ; but if you ever mean to marry, I 
wish you would take John Sumner.” 

Miss Travers stood upright and looked down at 
her cousin, saying, rapidly : 

“ Godfrey, don’t tempt me into letting alone one 
of the very few good things I ever attempted to do. 
Cecil loves him as I never could, and he would have 
loved her if I had not come between them, though 
not so willfully as you may think. At first, thinking 
him a coxcomb of the first water, I did try to vic- 
timize him ; but latterly, I know I have let him irre- 
proachably alone. Just now he cares for me a good 


THANK OFFERINGS. 


103 


deal more than I like to have him. No, he has not 
told me of it. A woman of my experience feels such 
things long before they are spoken, but I hope to 
change all that, and make Cecil the happiest woman 
under the sun before the New Year shall come in.” 

“ How will you go about it ?” 

“ Wait and see. Such things are easier done than 
said.” 

“Sorry I can’t say, * success to your endeavor.’” 

Miss Travers balanced herself upon tiptoe to 
answer — 

“ I feel assured of it, notwithstanding.” 

She might have been still more assured had she 
stood within the chamber where, upon the pretence 
of being knocked up by the day’s long hunt, Mr. 
Sumner sat solitary — for, to say truth, that gentle- 
man wore a most rueful countenance — and, albeit, 
little given to soliloquy, heaped various and sundry 
anathemas upon an absent head — the handsome 
reckless one so lately bent to him in mocking court- 
esy. He had read the letters almost without think- 
ing, and lacking all commentary save Oak’s distort- 
ed one, of course read them at their very worst. He 
loved Laide in spite of it all, and never faltered in 
his purpose to spare her annoyance at any cost; but 
no longer wished to marry her. His wife must be 
equally beyond reproach or suspicion — a woman 
whose fair life held no folded page, from whom none 
might withhold most reverential homage ; but it was 
maddening to know that this statue had found an 
earlier Pygmalion. This heart of ice had glowed with 
the tropic warmth of forbidden fire. But it was well 


104 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


the knowledge came thus early. Suppose she was 
his wife; he could not bear it. To love and lose her 
was bad enough ; to live with her in estrangement 
or distrust would be worse, infinitely worse. 

On the morrow he would go to Dr. Ellenbrod and 
tell him all, not with a hope of explanation, for the 
matter clearly admitted of none, but to put him so 
on guard as to keep Oak silent, and also to insure 
that the plans they two had made should never come 
to Laide’s hearing. Then he would go away. His 
allotted time was already twice spent, yet he had 
a curious longing to know how Laide would take his 
going. She could never be anything to him save 
the woman who taught him the pain of loving ; still 
I think the knowledge that she did not view him 
with utter indifference would have been balsam of 
healing to his somewhat lacerated affections. Sud- 
denly a waft of melody went through the air and 
turned the current of his meditations. It came, 
faint and far off, from the dim parlor, where Cecil 
practiced a choral for the service of thanksgiving. 
There was a woman, pure and sweet, in whom the 
heart of her husband might safely’ trust. Why 
should he not at last end well that half-begun woo- 
ing ? His present madness could not endure. Once 
away from Laide, her spell would be broken; but he 
needed something to help him to forget, and what 
could be more fit than this enchantress of sweet 
sounds. True, she compared with Laide as milk and 
water might with champagne frappe ; but whole- 
some insipidity was a safer quality to wed than con- 
centrated intoxication. If she would accept him, 


Thank offerings. 


105 


and, manlike, of that he had little doubt, it would 
be the best possible thing for him ; but he could not 
do it just yet. He would go away in silence, and 
come back later, unless he found forgetfulness easier 
than he dared to hope. Somehow he dreaded the 
thought of Green Hill and the solemn and severe 
hospitality his mother there dispensed, unrelieved 
by some younger presence. He was brought up 
solely to the occupation of being rich, and it was 
creditable to his natural uprightness that, instead of 
going utterly to the bad, he had obtained a fibre, 
mental and muscular, that enforced the respect of 
his fellow men. Just now he felt a sort of envy of 
those to whom Fate had allotted bread in the sweat 
of their brows. His life heretofore had been singu- 
larly placid, and this first sharp shock of emotion 
made him crave the relief of action, the spur of ne- 
cessity. A busy man would hardly remember to 
forget. In the absence of his lady-love, Mr. Sumner 
reasoned the matter as resting solely with himself, 
but I am firmly of opinion that his sage conclusions 
would have had about the strength of smoking flax 
if Miss Travers had chosen to smile dissent to them. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


“IN THE REBOUND/’ 

SOME people are born with a genius for misunder- 
standing, and of these Major Ellis was a conspicuous 
example. Though Sunday’s rencontre at first dis- 
concerted him no little, reflection upon it brought 
him to a conclusion far from displeasing. He knew 
Laide well enough to be assured that her recogni- 
tion of Miss Gordon was prompted by some motive 
stronger than mere courtesy, and straightway de- 
cided that she must be jealous. Now jealousy im- 
plied a feeling the very opposite of the tormenting 
indifference with which Miss Travers had. for so long 
viewed his inthrallment, consequently he resolved 
to put his fate bravely to the touch and win or lose 
his all at the earliest possible moment. Women, he 
firmly believed, were all alike, with the difference 
that while some would fly down your throat almost 
without asking, others required that you should 
make it worth their while, or even stoop to a little 
coaxing. Laide was the one invincible he had ever 
encountered — which accounted for the strength of 
her fascination — and even she, while laughing his 
set speeches to scorn and keeping him always meta- 
phorically ten feet away, had shown him a degree of 
toleration not altogether discouraging. 

So it fell out that upon the Tuesday morning, 
while Mr. Sumner went disconsolate to his late 


106 


TN THE REBOUND 


107 


mentor, and Godfrey was downcast at the thought 
of his departure, there came to Miss Travers a 
superb bouquet, and with it a scented missive whose 
purport was that, barring her prohibition, its writer 
would call that afternoon for a strictly private inter- 
view, and which was signed, in a dashing business 
hand, “ Her very ardent admirer, Hugh M. Ellis.” 
Laide read it in silence, then tossed it over to God- 
frey, with whom she was just going afield, saying: 

“ It really seems as though all things mean to 
work together for the fulfilling of my good inten- 
tions.” 

“ ‘ The combat thickens. On ye brave,’” quoted 
Godfrey, malapropos ; then, after a minute, “I want 
to know, Laide, how you expect to pass the time 
when your occupation’s gone ?” 

“ In being good.” 

“ Neat, but unsatisfying. Before Christmas you 
will be conscious of an aching void that only a new 
conquest can fill.” 

“ You forget the enormous effort it will require.” 

“ There is something in that ; but you’d best be 
warned in time. The role of devote will not suit you 
in the least.” 

“ Why not ? ‘ The deeper sinner, better saint,’ as 

is proven by numberless fearless examples.” 

“ There is the trouble. You have not enough to 
repent of to make the process interesting. If you 
had caused a duel or committed a murder, now, the 
case would be different.” 

Miss Travers laughed. “At least, I have kept 
several other women deliciously uncomfortable,” she 


108 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


said, with a shrug of her graceful shoulders ; but if 
you think that by not doing it any more I expect to 

‘ Burst the outer shell of Sin, 

And hatch myself a cherubim,’ 

you are mistaken. I do not aspire to be a pin- 
feathered angel, but merely a woman with no non- 
sense about her.” 

“ I hate abnormal developments of any sort,” was 
Mr. Lane’s very irrelevant answer. 

When Major Ellis got down from behind his show- 
ily-harnessed blacks at Eastbrook gate that after- 
noon, he was a sight to see — curled, scented, ringed, 
glossily immaculate from head to heel, with a swell- 
ing consciousness that here walked a man of whom 
the Creator might reasonably be proud written all 
over him. Laide, who awaited his coming the pic- 
ture of superb indifference, was almost fain to laugh 
outright at his overpowering elegance. She knew 
what was coming, and rather enjoyed the thought 
of it. To a sham of any sort she was pitiless, and 
she felt instinctively that there was no grain of 
genuine manliness in all the burly bigness of this 
tailor’s Adonis. He would have greeted her effus- 
ively, but she utterly overlooked his outstretched 
hands, and dropping into a chair at least five feet 
away from him, said, in a tone that might have been 
cut from a polar wave : 

“Thank you for the flowers. I carried them to 
Mauma, and she was ecstatic over them.” 

Ordinarily this speech and manner would have 
galled their recipient immeasurably, but now they so 
bore out his previous theory that he took his cour- 


‘IN THE REBOUND . 


109 


age in his hands, and advancing to Laide, in spite of 
her, said, in what he meant for a tenderly deprecat- 
ing voice : 

“ I know you are mad with me, Miss Laide, and 
I’m ready to kneel and ask your pardon.” 

For a minute Laide looked at him in open-eyed 
wonder, then his meaning flashed upon her, and, in 
spite of herself, a faint flush crept into her cheek as 
she answered : 

“ Don’t ! I haven’t the faintest idea of what I 
would have to pardon, unless it were the asking for 
this private interview. That is always bad form, no 
matter what you may have to say.” 

“ I thought it might, in some measure, prepare you 
for the responsibilities of decision,” with a grand bow. 

Laide almost screamed. Well as she knew the 
Major’s appreciation of himself, she was hardly pre- 
pared for so sublime an exhibition of colossal vanity. 
She would give him line, however, and be amused, 
as any other angler might, at seeing him play ; so 
with demurely dropped eyelids she asked : 

“ What am I called on to decide?” 

“ Our future lives,” trying to clutch her hand ; 
“ whether they shall be united and happy, or sun- 
dered and — and — apart,” stopping short with a feel- 
ing that, somehow, that synonymous climax was not 
exactly fitting. 

Laide put her hands behind her as a child might 
have done, and bravely repressing her inclinations 
to laugh, looked straight into his eyes and said : 

“ I think you are speaking to the wrong person, 
Major Ellis." 


110 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


“ I am speaking to the woman I love and wish to 
marry.” 

A fine faint scorn curved Laide’s lip, but she 
answered, temperately enough : 

“ I am sorry you think so, for it is out of the ques- 
tion.” 

“ You — you don’t mean to say you won’t have me ?” 

“ 'Only that — and nothing more.’” 

“Well!” with rising wrath, “I have heard you 
say Honor was your religion, and I want to know if 
you call it honorable to look sweet, and talk pretty, 
and try your best to make me fond of you for three 
whole years, and then throw me over like a dog, or 
worse ? / call it a shame.” 

Laide’s eyes flashed ominously, but her voice was 
supremely quiet as she answered : 

“ I would repent my sins in sackcloth and ashes, 
but for one thing.” 

“ And what, pray, is that ?” 

“ The three-years’ martyrdom of my grammatical 
sensibilities, which, I think, makes honors more 
than easy betwixt us.” 

The man glared at her in speechless wrath. The 
weakest joint in his armor was his desire to seem the 
gentleman he was not born ; hence this pin-thrust 
at his somewhat uncouth speech went fairly into the 
raw. After a little he went on : 

“You call yourself ‘ Cat,’ and rightly enough. You 
are just as sly, just as cruel, just as treacherous, and 
willing to play with all you catch.” 

Laide laughed aloud, and interrupted him in her 
airiest manner. 


“IN THE REBOUND N 


Ill 


“ My dear Major Ellis, I am sorry the par- 
allel will not hold. Cats prey only upon mice, ‘ and 
such small deer.’ Nobody ever heard of one’s catch- 
ing a gray goose, much less a golden one,” and with 
that went rapidly away and left him to his. anger. 
At the stairhead she stopped a minute, then turn- 
ing, tapped at Lucia’s door. 

“ I think Major Ellis wants to see you about the 
Framleys,” she said mendaciously, when that young 
lady came in view, thanking Fate as she spoke that 
Lucia’s latest development as Lady Bountiful made 
so good a pretext for sending her down. She knew 
thoroughly the man she was dealing with, and 
rightly judged that this white heat of wrath would 
make his affection so malleable as to be easily fitted 
to a new object ; besides, he was well aware of the 
latent antagonism betwixt herself and Lucia, and 
the latter’s presence might suggest what he would 
deem a most effectual revenge for the hurt his van- 
ity had suffered. And Lucia, with her creamy pink- 
flushed skin, pansy-purple eyes, and hair of spun 
silk, was certainly a woman to console any who had 
eyes to see her fairness. 

It might be hazardous to send her to him at this 
particular juncture, but Laide had, somehow, the 
courage of audacity in behalf of the new task she 
had set herself ; then, too, she remembered the rule 
of whist — “When in doubt, play a trump” — and 
risked this queen of hearts accordingly. 

Miss Fair never knew it, but her fate, like many 
another, hinged upon an if. The parlor would have 
been empty ere she reached it if the dim light and a 


112 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


fury of rage had not together so blinded Major Ellis 
that he did not see his hat upon the floor, where he 
dropped it in attempting to take Laide’s hand. 
Heavens ! How he hated her. She had not merely 
refused, but mocked him. If only he had the power, 
how he would like to crush and defile the insolent 
beauty which had lured him to such humiliation. 
The savage was so strongly uppermost in him that, 
despite her depth of cool-blooded calm, Lucia al- 
most shrank from him. Only for a minute though. 
Her heart, such as it was, was all given to this man 
— black-browed, squarely-massive, and ineffaceably 
coarse as he was ; and after a little space of talk 
about the Framleys, they slipped easily and rapidly 
into more personal channels, and there grew and 
strengthened within the Major’s mind a most stu- 
pendous scheme of vengeance. That Laide was in 
serious earnest he could not let himself believe. She 
meant to whistle him back after a while, as she had 
done many another ; but he would make that im- 
possible. So enormous was the man’s conceit, he 
really thought that to lose finally the possibility of 
being his wife was punishment sufficient even for 
the affront he had received. Besides, in the dim 
sunset light Lucia’s white loveliness stole through 
and possessed him as never before, and her slow 
waxen calm of manner was wonderfully alluring. 
What wonder then that, as twilight fell, and pale 
stars peered through veiling mists, he drifted into 
confidently passionate wooing, and went at last 
along his homeward way, if not troth-plighted— 
Lucia would not have bated by one hour the delay 


“IN THE REBOUND 


113 


she deemed proper, if Sir Launcelot himself had 
come a-wooing — at least reasonably assured of such 
future bliss as awaits the final perseverance of the 
saints and sinners. 

Miss Fair never said a word to anybody through- 
out the evening, but for all that she was too wise to 
risk the dangers of delay, for when, upon the morrow, 
Mr. Sumner bade them a collective good-bye, she 
said, with a most meaning inflexion: “ If we give 
you up now, you must not fail to come back for 
Thanksgiving, just three weeks from to-morrow, re- 
member,” while Laide, wickedly light-hearted over 
her scheme’s success, whispered aside to Godfrey : 
“The farce is well ended, now ring up the curtain 
upon genteel comedy,” whereat that gentleman fore- 
bodingly sighed: “I fear that will be somewhat 
marred by too perfect a heavy villain.” 


CHAPTER XIV. 

A COMMITTEE OF FINANCE. 

“WELL ! What are you going to do about it ?” 

“ Nothing.” 

“ * Nothing’ be hanged! I thought you had some 
spunk.” 

“ That could hardly be expected of your sister, 
but I have too much entirely to do what I know you 
are thinking about.” 

Patricia Gordon spoke with a most superb scorn. 
Degraded as she was, she had not yet reached the 
point of being unconscious of it, and this lazy, 
shambling, shiftless brother often stirred her to most 
wrathful disgust. Once the Gordons ranked with 
the best, but two spendthrift generations had 
brought them low indeed, and since her father’s 
death, ten years ago, this eldest child and only 
daughter had tasted all possible humiliation. The 
mother was incapacity incarnate, while the two boys 
lacked nothing but courage and energy of being 
first-class scoundrels. Work of any sort they utter- 
ly disdained as inconsistent with their family’s gen- 
teel traditions, which, however, were no bar to such 
practices as brought them into utter disreputability 
with their neighbors. Patricia fairly hated them 
sometimes. She was not logical, and reasoned that 
while a woman’s indolence was excusable, nay, even 
commendable, men ought to work and keep those 
belonging to them respectable. 

114 


A COMMITTEE OF FINANCE. 


115 


Tom had come back from a day’s lounge about 
the Court House, full of great news. Major Ellis 
and Miss Fair were to marry upon Thanksgiving 
day, and the event' was to be celebrated with such 
splendor that the bare preparations for it had set the 
country pretty well agog. Naturally enough, Tom 
inclined to view anything which threatened so seri- 
ously to diminish the precarious Gordon revenue 
with very great disfavor, and Patricia’s apathy over 
it was an intense, and by no means pleasing sur- 
prise. After a while he said, meditatively : 

“You might a-married him, ’Tricia, if you’d 
a-played your c’yards right. You’re a better lookin’ 
woman than she is, any day.” 

“Men don’t generally marry women whose fami- 
lies they have to support beforehand,” Patricia said, 
angrily ; then, after a minute, “ did you see him to- 
day, Tom ?” 

“Yes, and he tried ter dodge me like I’d been a 
mad dog ; but I cornered him fair at dinner time.” 

“ What for ?” 

“ O ! I wanted to borrow five dollars of him, and 
he wouldn’t have let me have it if he hadn’t been 
afraid I’d raise a row before Godfrey Lane. They 
were eatin’ at the same table at the hotel ; you know 
he’s her step-brother, and might tell tales.” 

“ Hardly, for there is no love lost between them, 
and he will be too glad to get rid of her to do any- 
thing that would stop the marriage.” 

“ You’re the one that ought to stop it. Why don’t 
you sue him for breach of promise ?” 

“ And call on my dear, delicate, honorable broth- 


116 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


ers to testify that I got, and they spent , all he ever 
promised me,” Patricia cried, with a stamp of her 
foot and eyes fairly blazing ; but Tom was una- 
bashed. 

“You might get ten thousand dollars,” he said, 
doggedly ; “ not that the jury would think you de- 
served it, but nobody likes him any too well, and 
they’d be glad of a chance to bleed him ; and I say 
it’s worth trying for, in spite of your high strikes.” 

“ I am worth it, and more,” Patricia said, bitterly, 
remembering the perfect loveliness that smiled back 
to her from the mirror ; then, a quick wavering crim- 
son glowing in her face ; “ but let me tell you, Tom, 
once and for all, I don’t want to stop it. I went to 
school with Lucia Fair — you remember, when the 
Masons tried to fit me for a teacher — and I know 
she will avenge all I have endured from that man. I 
am glad it is she, not I, he is to marry, and I repeat 
I would not stop it even if I could.” 

“ How if it was Laide Travers ? She’s the one 
I’ve been jealous of all along, and this other took me 
plumb in the weather eye.” 

“ If it was Laide Travers, I would go through fire 
to balk him ; but there was never any danger of 
that. She understands him as well as I do.” 

“ I can’t see the difference. She’s as haughty as 
the devil, and wouldn’t even look at you if she saw 
you.” 

“ He wanted her bad enough to make a very great 
difference,” Patricia said, with a shrill laugh ; and 
then the two dropped into sullen silence, while the 
straggling ash-encumbered fire threw fitful gleams 


A COMMITTEE OF FINANCE. 


117 


about the disordered room and battered furniture, 
and made of Patricia, in her crimson gown, a white 
lily among autumn leaves. From crown to slipper 
she was always daintily neat, a marvelous contrast 
to the slip-shod surroundings whose betterment 
called for effort that she had neither will nor indus- 
try to undertake. 

Presently the mother came in — a worn, faded, 
slatternly woman, who was always lamenting her 
poor boys’ fate. It was very hard, she thought, and 
even said, that of all their father’s friends, nobody 
cared to provide a way whereby they might live as 
became a gentleman’s sons. Of course she did not 
want them to work — that was not to be thought of 
— but there were plenty of genteel places she was 
sure they might fill admirably, and if Patricia had 
had a spark of sisterly feeling, she knew at least one 
of them might have been, ere this, in Major Ellis’ 
counting-room, a well-paid employee 'and highly 
probable partner. It grieved her to the heart to see 
them hunt, fish and lounge, day after day ; but what 
else could they do ? Negroes worked the homestead, 
which alone was left her, “ on de sheers,” and got 
about all the little they made, and nobody would 
supply her sons with a farm worth their attention, 
and as to seeing them plow, dig and reap, sh€’ never 
w r ould agree to it — no, never. Her children seldom 
heeded her. Neither of them stirred at her coming 
in, and it was only after Teddy, the youngest, was 
added to the circle that Tom roused himself to re- 
peat his budget of news, which Teddy waved loftily 
away, saying : 


118 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


“I’ve had all that from first hands,” while Mrs. 
Gordon sighed, disconsolately : 

“ Oh, dear ! Everybody marries but my children. 
Patricia, I can’t think you make the proper effort. 
You are just the age of Lucia Fair, and much hand- 
somer. I know you never liked Major Ellis, but he 
was very attentive to you, and for the sake of your 
family you really might have married him.” 

A scornful smile marred Patricia’s perfect lips. 

“ I might go to heaven under some impossible 
conditions — say if I had no ‘ family — ’ ” she said, with 
slow distinct utterance; then, more rapidly, “but, 
mother mine, I will promise to marry whenever you 
may find a man with money enough to pay for 
license and the parson who is fool enough to want 
me.” 

“Now you’re talkin’, and I know the very feller,” 
Teddy cried, springing excitedly to his feet. 

“Who is he?” 

“Oak Ellenbrod. Oh, you needn’t laugh, Tom! 
Me, and him, and Jerry Poole — the yaller feller that 
waits an Godfrey Lane, you know — has been a-fishin’ 
together all day, and you just oughter heard how 
the money rattled in Oak’s pockets. Jerry had a 
right smart, too ; said the boss had paid him and 
turned him off that morning, but he wasn’t going to 
stay turned off. I never felt so poor in all my life, 

without a cent and them d d fools jingling 

money all around me. Say, ’Tricia, can’t you give 
me some ?”, 

Patricia shook her head, and Tom said, medita- 
tively : 


A COMMITTEE OF FINANCE. 119 

“Wonder if Dr. Ellenbrod hasn’t turned Oak off, 
too. I would, I know, if I had as much money as 
that old codger. I’d pay him handsome to go away 
and never come back, and take some good lookin’ 
boy, like me, in the place of him.” 

“No doubt of it,” from Teddy ; “but you see he 
ain’t that sort. He banks on family, and blood, and 
such. All Oak would tell us about his money was, 
that he was ‘coming into his property, coming into 
his property,’ and Jerry says he has a watch now 
‘ too fine to wear, too fine to wear — too fine even to 
trade.’ ” 

“ He must be ‘coming into his property’ with a 
vengeance. Reckon the old doctor’s about con- 
cluded to let him spend some of the fortune while 
he’s here to see it, instead of leaving it all for some- 
body to fool him out of, after he’s dead.” 

“ I never did think Oakley Ellenbrod was half the 
fool some people made him out,” Mrs. Gordon said, 
with animation. 

“ He ain’t pretty, that’s a fact, but with a fortune in 
hand, I’d be willing to call him brother. Think you 
can persuade him, Ted, that he really wants Tricia ?” 

“ He don’t need no persuadin’,” confidently from 
Teddy. “To-day, when Jerry was tellin’ about the 
weddings, he says there’s goin’ to be three — that 
Sumner feller and Laide, and Cecil and Godfrey 
Lane, besides the Major and Lucia. Oak spoke up 
as peart , ‘ Marryin’s the fashion now, marryin’s the 
fashion ; believe I’ll marry myself ;’ then he reached 
across an’ give me such a punch it most made me 
jump in the creek, and said, ‘ S’pose I take ’Tricia, 


120 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


take ’Tricia. She’s a pretty girl, and don’t laugh at 
me, don’t laugh at me.’ ” 

“What did you tell him ?” 

“Told him he shouldn’t have her unless he’d 
make ‘ Tom,’ as he calls him, buy me a horse, for I was 
tired of footing it, while you rode old Nell to death.” 

“ How did he take that ?” 

“Whew — ew — ew — ee ! I thought he’d have a 
fit. He clapped both hands over his pockets and 
doubled up in a regular camel’s hump, and begun to 
screech, ‘won’t have her, don’t want her; rather 
keep my money, keep my money;’ and then, after I 
told him it was all a joke, he quieted down ter fishin’ 
again ; but once and awhile he’d look at me sorter 
out of the corner of his eye, and. pretty soon he got 
up, ‘let’s go home, fish are tired of bitin’, tired of 
bitin’;’ but me an’ Jerry wouldn’t hear to that, and 
I believe he kicked the bait-cup in the water while 
we weren’t noticing, for it couldn’t be found shortly, 
and while Jerry and me was digging some more he 
slipped away from us.” 

Tom laughed uproariously. “Never strike your 
fish before you hook him, Ted,” he said, when he 
could speak. “ Oak’s closer’n the bark to a black- 
gum tree, and you scared him out of a year’s growth 
just talking about his giving anything away ; but I 
say, ’Tricia, quit holding quaker meeting, and tell us 
how you like your new beau ?” 

“ He seems almost a gentleman, by contrast with 
my brothers,” Patricia answered, hotly ; then, after a 
minute, dropped her head into her hands and for a 
little space cried bitterly. 


A COMMITTEE OF FINANCE . 


121 


Hers was one of those liquid natures that are 
shaped always by the hollow in which they may 
happen to fall, and mirror perfectly their surround- 
ings, be they good or bad, yet keep through all de- 
filement a sentience of clearness and sorrow for its 
loss. She wished, oh ! so much, that she had never 
been born, or else that she had been given a place 
where it was possible to be respectable. She hated 
her misdoing, but I very much fear it was mostly for 
its ill-savor among men. Certainly, after awhile, she 
dried her eyes and laughed with the rest as Teddy 
repeated what Jerry had told concerning the mar- 
velous preparations for the wedding. It did not hurt 
her in the least that the bridegroom was so lately 
her contemptuous worshiper. She knew him for the 
bully and tyrant that he was, and spoke truth in 
saying she would not, if she could, be in place of 
Miss Fair. But marriage was, for her, the one re- 
putable gate to ease — and she did want'to marry 
somebody who could keep her in cotton-wool and 
would never storm at her. If he were ugly, or awk- 
ward, or even stupid, what did it matter ? He would 
be only the more likely to prize, to the extent of 
subservience, her beauty and grace ; and even to 
herself she did not deny that he would have some- 
thing to overlook in spite of her charms. On the 
whole, she was inclined to heed Tom’s advice, given 
as they separated for the night, and that was, “ Al- 
ways take a tad-pole when you can get one, ’Tricia, 
for frogs ain’t so easy caught, and he’s certain to 
grow.” 


CHAPTER XV. 


“ BULL-DOZING.” 

Mr. Lane’s door was cautiously opened and a 
woolly head thrust half within, while a cajoling voice 
said : 

“Marse Go’frey, here’s de ’ooman wants ter see 
you.” 

“ Let her come in,” said that gentleman, resign- 
edly, throwing down his paper, while his foreman, 
Hiram Poole, after thrusting “ de ’ooman — other- 
wise his wife, Tansy — half through the door, went 
precipitately about his own concerns. 

Jerry was no child of his ; indeed, he had known 
Tansy only since “ de freedom come,” yet he felt 
that duty required him to support her thus far, but 
no farther. 

She came forward in silence, though Godfrey gave 
her a cordial greeting, and fixed upon him a gaze so 
reproachful that, after a minute, he was fain to say : 

“If you want anything, Tansy, why don’t you 
speak out, instead of standing there, staring like an 
owl, or an idiot. Is your cow dead ? or have the 
hogs got into your potato patch ? or what the mis- 
chief is the matter ?” 

“ Marse Go’fry, I come ’bout my po’ chile.” 

“What about him ?” 

“I wants you ter take him back.” 

“ Then I tell you flatly that I can’t.” 

122 


“BULL-DOZING. 


123 


“What’s he been a-doin’ ?” 

“ Everything that he ought not, and nothing that 
he should — getting drunk ” 

“ I done whipped him fer dat.” 

“ Wearing my bes£ shirts, worrying the calves, 
stealing eggs and apples that he might have had for 
asking; riding my horse to night-meetings, and leav- 
ing all his work for Uncle Ned’s doing, are just a 
few of the things I can’t put up with longer.” 

“ Marse Go’frey, ’taint de chile.” 

“ What is it, then ?” 

“ ’Tis dem sperets — ebil sperets — whar is fightin’ 
wid de gospil in him. He’ll be a puffec lamb when 
it’s ober.” 

“I can’t doubt the ‘ebil sperets” presence, but 
they have such undisputed possession that I won’t 
undertake to fight them any further.” 

“ Marse Go’frey, ef you an’ de Lord don’ take him 
up, what’s gwine come er him ?” 

“ Put him to work. Let Hiram have control of 
him for a year or so, and I’ll warrant he’ll cure him.” 

“ Marse Go’frey, I’ll whip dat boy whenuver he 
needs it, whenuver you says so ; but Hi. Poole ain’t 
never gwine ter tech him.” 

“Then you may expect him to be hung. A master 
is what he needs now — one that would take the 
trouble to thrash him into usefulness.” 

“ You ses he’s no account ?” 

“ Entirely so.” 

“ An’ lazy an’ triflin’ ?” 

“Yes; and thievish and impudent into the bar- 
gain.” 


124 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


“ Is you sho’ dar ain’t no lies been tole on him ?” 

“ There can’t be, unless they are told by my eyes. 
All I have spoken is of my own knowledge. 

“ I des thought maybe, Uncle Ned’s sech er sin- 
ner ” 

“I wish I could find such another one ; I would 
not give him for a countyful of ‘ Christians’ like 
Jerry.” 

Tansy groaned aloud at such impiety, and said, 
after a minute, in a choked voice : 

“ Marse Go’frey, I knowed you didn’t nebber ’long 
ter de chu’ch ; but I did thought you membered 
your mother, my ole mist’is, too much ter say dat. 
Don’t you b’leebe she’s up in heaben dis minute ?” 

“ Yes, devoutly.” 

“ An’ my mammy whar nussed you, when us bofe 
was babies — is she gone down ter sat-ern ?” 

“ No ; but what has that to do with this case ? 
Your mother had real religion that made her a better 
nurse, better mother, better woman. Jerry has no 
more than a mule, yet pleads it in excuse of all sorts 
of antics.” 

“ Don’t, don’t blaspeme de speret, Marse Go’frey,” 
cried Tansy, wringing her hands. “You can’t know; 
you’s a chile ob darkness whar hates de light.” 

Godfrey was growing nervous. 

“See here, Tansy,” he' begun, imperatively, 
“ there is no use in talking ; I have borne with Jerry 
until forbearance would be a sin ; but if you’ll let 
Hiram have him long enough to cure him of his non- 
sense, I’ll promise to take him back and raise his 
wages.” 


'• BULL-DOZING U 


125 


“ Marse Go’frey, how long is you been had dat 
boy yere ’bout de house ? Ain’t it fo’ years ?” 

“Four years ; and he should not have stayed four 
weeks if it had not been on account of you and 
Mauma.” 

“ Granny don’ like him. She’s so ole she kin hardly 
see how likely de boy is growin’ up. But you says 
he’s clean no ’count ?” 

“ I can’t say anything else.” 

“ An’ you been hired ’im fo’ years ?” 

“Yes,” very impatiently. 

“ Why ain’t you larnt ’im som’fin’, den ?” 

The question came with judicial gravity that fairly 
staggered Godfrey. For a minute he could not re- 
ply, and Tansy went on : 

“ I does think, Marse Go’frey, seeing the po’ chile 
ain’t got no daddy, you was de one ter make him 
some ercount. Me an’ my mammy, an’ all my gran’- 
mammies, ’longed ter de Traverses sence we bin in 
dis country, an’ you got de Travers’ look an’ de 
Travers’ blood ef you ain’t de name. We wus little 
fellers when yo’ mother died, but I ’member how she 
begged granny an’ mammy ter take keer er you after 
she wus gone, an’ dey don’ it, Marse Go’frey, ter de 
las’.” 

As Tansy spoke, Godfrey’s resolution melted like 
wax in flame. He, too, remembered vividly that 
far-away death-bed, and the desolate boyhood that 
came after it. It would have been often comfortless 
as well, but for the loving care invoked by those 
dying lips. True, his father loved him after a man’s 
selfish fashion, and his mother’s place was not very 


126 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


long unfilled ; but the step-mother was incapable 
and semi-invalid, and Lucia so absorbed her love 
there was little to spare, even when her own child 
Marion was born. 

Eastbrook was always home to him — bis mother 
keeping house for her dearly loved brother until 
Death took her away. Laide’s mother died within 
the year of her marriage, and despite man’s natural 
tendency to consolation, Lion Travers kept her 
memory green until he was laid once more beside 
her. Strangely enough he did not love his nephew. 
The boy was shy and backward, with scant promise 
of developing such sturdy manhood. “ Altogether 
a Lane,” the uncle set him down, and for his brother- 
in-law he had only toleration. But Laide made up 
to him all her father’s shortcomings. She cried for 
him before she could speak, and in her father’s fre- 
quent absences, toddled ceaselessly at his heels. 
Later on, they together petted Marion and antagon- 
ized Lucia, in which process Tansy was a stout ally, 
and Mauma’s house a haven of refuge. How well he 
remembered Tansy’s wedding. Though hardly two 
years his senior, she reached the perfection of buxom 
womanhood while he was a gawky lad in jackets. 
The groom was an over-gro\^n jockey, whom his 
uncle picked up somewhere in the farthest South — 
a supple, oily, worthless fellow, who ran off from 
wife and child at the first blush. Jerry was hopeless- 
ly like him — but perhaps he did owe something to 
the memory of those faithful friendless years — yet he 
would not surrender utterly without discretion. He 
would take him back only upon condition of less re- 


bull-dozing: 


127 


ligion and more work. Tansy stood snubbing and 
swaying her round person back and forth as she 
waited his decision, with a calmly righteous confi- 
dence that it would be in her favor. 

“ Tansy,” he began, with an ineffectual attempt at 
sternness, “ I don’t see — thei^ is really no call for 
me to bother myself with that scoundrel ; but as it 
seems you’ve set your heart on it, I’ll give him one 
more trial.” 

“ I knowed you would, if you des took time ter 
thought about it.” 

“ Don’t interrupt, but listen to what I say. If he 
comes back to me he must do whatever Uncle Ned 
may set him at— — ” 

“Efhe don’t, I’ll skin him.” 

“ Quit hunting and fishing, and be in place when- 
ever he is wanted ” 

“’Twon’t be healthy fer me ter ketch ’im ’way 
fr’m here.” 

“ And, finally, quit preaching.” 

“ Ma-a-rse Go’frey ! ! !” 

No words can convey the remonstrance of Tansy’s 
tone. Godfrey hastened to make a concession that 
a minute before he would have mentally scouted. 

“ Yes, quit preaching ; he’s entirely too young for 
that, but he may go to meeting as often as he likes,” 
he said, hardly repressing a laugh at his own imbe- 
cility, while Tansy, like other victors, thinking it 
wisest not to press her advantage too far, bowed 
herself thankfully away. 

Two minutes later Miss Travers came out of the 
ambush of curtains, where she had been eaves- 


128 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


dropping, and said, looking at her cousin with mis- 
chievous eyes : 

“ Godfrey, the newspapers have been talking this 
long time about bull-dozing, and I am so glad to 
have at last found out exactly what it means.” 

Mr. Lane shut his tormentor’s mouth with a kiss, 
a revenge as excusable as pleasant. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

THE RING-ING OF BELLES. 

THROUGHOUT the preparations for Lucia’s wed- 
ding, Laide’s activity and generosity were equally 
marvelous. Her taste planned, her skill directed, 
her purse supplied material for Eastbrook’s transfor- 
mation into a veritable fairy palace ; nor did her 
efforts stop there. The trousseau was at least one- 
half of her bestowing, and when the wedding night 
was actually at hand, she showed such solicitude for 
the appearance of Cecil and Marion, who, like herself, 
were bridesmaids, it really seemed she was anxious 
to be outshone. Lucia, in white brocade and lace, 
was the embodiment of lovely stateliness, while 
Marion’s fresh fairness put to shame her “ gloss of 
satin and glimmer of pearls” — Laide’s pearls, on 
throat and wrist — and Cecil’s shy black eyes, so 
gleamed as almost to rival the solitaires in her ears 
and the flashing cross upon her breast. They were 
wonderfully becoming, those bright stones, but 
Laide had almost to force her into wearing them; 
yet, after all was done, Marion cried out, laughing : 

“ No wonder you are ‘ content with the ornament 
of a meek and quiet spirit.’ I never saw you look so 
well in my life. Jewels make you regal, but with 
those flowers you are fairly angelic.” 

Miss Travers eyed her clustered heliotrope and 
tube-roses with some complacence as she answered ; 
w 


130 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


“ I hope not. I never did ‘ want to be an angel 
but this dull white gown is rather becoming — and 
then it falls into such classic folds.” 

“You must have chosen it for Mr. Milkway’s especial 
destruction. I know he will canonize you as ‘ Saint 
Adelaide ’ at sight.” 

Miss Travers made a mutinous mouth. 

“No,” she said, shaking her head, “I shall con- 
fine myself strictly to my lawfully appointed prey, 
and ‘waste my sweetness on the desert air’ of God- 
frey throughout the evening.” 

“Wasn’t it nice to consult us in selecting the 
groomsmen ? Major Ellis might, if he had chosen, 
have had some horrid strange men instead of God- 
frey, Mr. Sumner and Charley.” 

“ The Major was always tres comme il faut , but as 
a bridegroom I agree with you, he is more than irre- 
proachable,” Laide said, with warmly polite insin- 
cerity. 

Lucia played with a superb bracelet, his latest gift, 
and smiled rather queerly. She knew, instinctive- 
ly, that his transfer to herself was, somehow, Laide’s 
doing, and though most willing to accept whatever 
of good her late rival might provide, she could not 
forgive her the having power to bestow it. Her own 
dependence had never galled her half so much as 
Laide’s heiressship, and I think about the heavenliest 
ingredient of her present felicity was a conviction 
that the world would think the Major hers in spite, 
not because of that young lady. 

Presently Cecil, who was tremulously happy in the 
thought of again seeing her demi-god, asked very 
softly : 


THE RING-ING OF BELLES. 


131 


“ When will we go to church ?” 

“Not for a good hour,” laughed Marion. “It’s 
only six, and seven is the appointed time. How 
lucky that we have only a mile to go ; Lucia would 
otherwise have to give up her fancy for a high 
church wedding, with the parson in full canonicals.” 

“ ‘ Somebody’s coming, coming, coming; 

Somebody’s coming, but I’ll not say who,’ ” 

sang Laide, pirouetting about the room, as manly 
footsteps sounded in the wide entrance hall. 

She was fairly wild to-night. “ Intoxicated with 
atonement,” Godfrey said; at any rate she was mar- 
velously lovely, with her wildrose bloom, clear 
cairngorm eyes, and light-hearted laughter about 
her perfect lips. 

Lucia cleared her throat, and spoke a trifle un- 
easily : 

“ I hope you girls won’t be disappointed, but I, 
that is we, have changed the programme slightly.” 

“ How ?” 

“ By not having groomsmen. Of course they will 
come back with us, and you can talk to them after- 
ward just the same ; but I want Godfrey to give me 
away — he’s the proper person — and I’m sure Dr. 
Ellenbrod would blunder terribly, on purpose, too, 
so he shall take in Mama. I will go with Godfrey, 
with you three walking before us.” 

“ And Charley and Mr. Sumner ; what becomes of 
them ? Are they to bring in the sacrificial lamb ?” 

“ Oh, no !” smiling. “ He will have his own best 
man ; it will be so much more distingue and uncom- 


132 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


mon you know. Everybody nearly has groomsmen.” 

“Who is he?” 

“ Some friend of his ; a most elegant gentleman 
he says, but I really forget the name.” 

“ Lucia,” — Laide’s tone was preternaturally sol- 
emn — “do you know what you have done ? how you 
lead me into temptation when I had most faith- 
fully resolved to be good, and to that end restricted 
myself for to-night to Godfrey, whom I cannot pos- 
sibly lead astray. But see what comes of your ‘ best 
man.’ At the bare mention of him my good resolu- 
tions become thistledown, and I ‘ mark him for my 
own.’ Cecil, Marion, I dare you, either of you, to 
cast upon him eyes of appropriation. You have each 
a lover in hand, and I do hate greediness.” 

“ I’ve always heard reformed drunkards made the 
best temperance orators,” Marion said, with pretend- 
ed indignation. 

Miss Travers laughed, and answered, imperturb- 
ably : 

“ They do, especially when the reformation is only 
partial.” 

Lucia smiled brightly at their pleasantry, evident- 
ly glad the disclosure was over and the new arrange- 
ment so well received. The gentlemen knew it ; 
she herself had told Godfrey within the half hour. 
The groom and best man would go straight to the 
church and await their coming in the vestry. Doubt- 
less they were there now, and really it was almost 
time to be going. So, shortly after, they trooped 
down the wide stairway, a bevy of Paradise birds, of 
whom Godfrey could find nothing better to say than 


THE RhVG-hVG OF BELLES. 


133 


“ stunning,” while Charley instantly claimed Marion 
with an air of cool proprietorship wonderful to be- 
hold, and Mr. Sumner, after one hungry look at 
Laide, gave Cecil a most resolute devotion. Then 
the short drive was over, there was a whisper of con- 
ference in the vestibule, and, with the swiftness of a 
dream, Laide found herself within the lighted, vine- 
wreathed, flower-decked church, where the Rev. Mr. 
Milkway, cast down but not afraid, awaited them in 
full panoply of ecclesiastical millinery. Once in 
place, she dared not look about her, so conscious 
was she of an insane desire to laugh, but stood 
throughout the wearisome ceremony a breathing 
down-lidded statue. It had been arranged that the 
best man should take out of church her, the first 
bridesmaid, and when it was over, raising faintly- 
curious eyes to the man whose proffered arm she 
had silently taken, she saw the clear-cut, magnetic 
face of Fritz Raimund, and so seeing, felt as though 
steely fingers clutched her heart, for what but direst 
ill could come to her from this alliance of two men 
whose strong love had turned to hate. And what 
an ally they would have in Lucia. The garnered 
spite of years would delight in wreaking vengeance ; 
and then, too, the reputation for amiability, which 
Lucia had so carefully earned outside the family cir- 
cle, would make her stabs all the deadlier. But for 
all that Laide did not blench. The Travers blood 
was hot and haughty, and knew not how to quail. 
Fever-scarlet glowed in place of the rose-flush, and 
her eyes dilated to blackness, but she gave no other 
sign, and when, ere they entered the carriage, Major 


134 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


Ellis essayed a formal presentation, she waved him 
off, with sprightly indifference, saying : 

“ Mr. Raimund and I are very old acquaintances, 
and even if he has forgotten me, .1 shall not let him 
admit it.” 

Happily, there could be no tete-a-tete. Marion 
and Charley were in the same carriage, and once 
home in the thick of the crowd, she could elude him 
without any appearance of so doing. She must caution 
Godfrey. He gloomed like a thunder-cloud in the 
glimpse she had of him, and a scene would ruin 
everything. The air was full of thick scudding 
vapors, whose fantastic shapes were ceaselessly lit 
up with fiery zigzag flashes. Surely the imminent 
storm in the air might suffice, without the warring of 
human elements. 

The night was brilliantly successful — as much so 
as profusion of lights, flowers, choicest viands, music, 
dancing, and the gathered elite of far and near could 
make it. For long afterward its splendors were re- 
called by many a fireside, and in more than one life 
it marked an era, yet to Laide it was a torture, 
though Raimund held himself as much aloof from 
her as regard for appearances permitted. He 
seemed to take readily her cue that the past held 
nothing either to ignore or repent, and acted it so 
perfectly that she ought to have been intensely 
grateful. 

It was a night of sensations. Mr. Wilby, a jovial 
married man who admired Lucia greatly, and was, 
in addition, one of those county magnates and mar- 
tyrs, a justice of the peace, came so late as to miss 


THE RING-ING OF BELLES, 


135 


the ceremony entirely, and when rallied upon his 
tardiness, said, laughing : 

“ I had the same sort of a job on hand, and 
couldn’t be here, unless Milkway would have 
swapped work with me.” 

“Indeed ! And who were the high contracting 
parties ?” Major Ellis asked, pompously. 

Wilby looked at him curiously as he answered : 

“ Can’t you guess ?” 

“ I haven’t the faintest idea, unless it was some 
tramp. I believe you are rather a favorite with 
them.” 

Mr. Wilby was nettled. He had, it is true, mar- 
ried tramps and paupers, but in a style that he flat- 
tered himself few men could excel, and many reput- 
able people were of his way of thinking, as the 
county records and several tow-headed “John Wil- 
bys ” abundantly proved. So he answered, loud 
enough to reach everybody : 

“It was a tramp, the greatest one in the county, 
— Oak Ellenbrod — whom I married fast and hard to 
— Miss Patricia Gordon.” 

At the bride’s name Major Ellis and the ladies 
generally were about equally disconcerted. The 
men laughed in the ambush of moustaches, and Laide 
grew pale with thankfulness that her old friend went 
straight home from the church and so missed receiv- 
ing publicly this last blow. It would hurt him sore- 
ly she knew, and he was grieved enough already — 
she read that in his eyes when Mr. Sumner turned 
from her to Cecil. What was the bond betwixt the 
two men she did not know, but she did know that 


136 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


the elder one was sorely hurt by her indifference to 
his friend. But of that indifference she could not 
repent. Cecil’s radiant face was her one gleam of 
consolation. Happiness made the little woman 
beautiful, and when, later on, she drew Laide aside 
and held shyly to her view a diamond-circled finger, 
no sister’s lips could have given a tenderer kiss than 
did those of the woman who, not so long ago, she 
both envied and feared. By nature, the two women 
were incongruous, and friendship between them was 
only possible by the broader soul going out of itself 
to the narrower one, as Laide of late had done. Yet, 
in her shy fashion, Cecil was very grateful. 

“ You are quite overdone,” she said, pressing cool 
soft fingers to Laide’s burning cheeks. “Come and 
rest awhile,” drawing her, as she spoke, into God- 
frey’s den, which he had flatly refused to let them 
dismantle and adorn into fitness for public occupa- 
tion. Its homeliness was refreshing now by contrast 
with the rest of it, and Laide sank upon the sofa 
with a sigh of intense weariness p , while Cecil slipped 
noiselessly away. 

Looking up presently, she saw Mr. Raimund 
standing just where John Sumner stood in the begin- 
ning of their memorable encounter, and at once 
sprang upright, facing him with nervously-locked 
fingers, but a face of surprised indifference. His eyes 
met hers in passionate appeal, yet he came no nearer 
and said, very quietly : 

“ I will go away if you bid me, but there is some- 
thing I would like to say, if you will hear it.” 

Miss Travers bowed a silent acquiescence, and, 
after a minute, he went on ; 


THE ELYG-LVG OF BELLES. 137 

“ Is there anything, I wonder, a man will not do 
for love ? I am reasonably proud, yet it made me 
come here, where I know myself about as welcome as 
the plague.” 

“ You underrate our hospitality. As Major Ellis’ 
fnend, you are deservedly welcome,” Laide answered, 
with cool irony in every line of her face. 

“ I am not his friend, and if I did scheme to have 
him bring me here as such, it was solely that I 
might tell you what I fear you will not believe.” 

“ Indeed ! What is that ?” 

“ My purpose in trying to get those letters, which 
was simply to insure you against annoyance by their 
immediate destruction. Do you believe me ?” 

“ Courtesy and candor are so at conflict, I must 
beg you to excuse me from answering.” 

He looked at her with a strange smile. 

“ May I ask if Mr. Sumner is your fiancee ?” 

“ I am unable to see what that has to do with it.” 

“ Answer me, even if you do not.” 

“You have no right to ask; but he is not , and fur- 
ther, I have just kissed and sent away the woman 
whom I shall soon be heartily glad to see his wife.” 

“Both of us, it seems, were check-mated.” 

“ I do not comprehend.” 

“ It is just as well you do not. Laide,” coming a 
step nearer and speaking very earnestly, “I know 
what you think — that I have struck hands with Ellis, 
to wound, worry and torment you. With your ami- 
able cousin added, the combination would be a pe- 
culiarly strong one — Oak, you see, has let me inside 
of Eastbrook family history— but I swear that from 


138 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


me they know, and shall know, nothing whatever 
that lies back of this night ; and further, if I had 
power ten times over to compel you to be mine, I 
would not take you save by your free consent.” 

“ The magnanimity of defeat is surprising,” Laide 
said, cruelly, her fine thin nostrils quivering with 
scorn; yet pity softened the passion in his eyes, and 
his voice was very low as he again spoke : 

“I cannot blame your bitterness, Laide. From 
first to last I have treated you as ill as man could, but 
henceforth you shall have no cause of complaint.” 

“ Do you mean that you altogether relinquish 
your pursuit ?” 

“ Only with my life, Laide ; but I will use none 
but fair means.” 

“ Are not any means fair that will serve your pur- 
pose ?” 

“No. You laugh when I talk of honor, but as 
God hears me, it shall henceforth govern strictly my 
thoughts and acts towards you.” 

“ ‘ Honor,’ if the thing is not to you a myth, if 
you do'not take its name altogether in vain, let me 
tell you what you will do ?” 

“ I will listen.” 

“You will go away from here and never again 
come in my sight.” 

He shook his head. “ I would doit if I could, but 
it is impossible.” 

“Why?” 

“Because love of you has grown to be my best 
life, and to lose you by default would be punishment 
greater than even I deserve.” 


THE RING-ING OF BELLES. 


139 


“What has so changed your opinion of yourself? 
At our last meeting you certainly inclined to rank 
yourself almost a Sir Galahad.” 

“ Laide,” dropping his forced calm and speaking 
hotly ; “ don’t — don’t taunt me so. God knows my 
life has been bad enough ; I may not even make it 
any better henceforward, but I shall honestly try, 
and I love you so, I would gladly risk my life and 
lose my soul in hope of winning you ; yet, when I 
look at you now, the picture of scorn, and contrast 
you with the simple, noble, lovable woman who 
stood in church unconscious of my presence, I could 
almost wish our paths had never crossed.” 

“ Why not quite ?” 

“Because memory holds for me the same woman, 
as noble, as lovable, but younger and loving. Ah, 
God ! loving as I did not deserve her to be. I came 
upon her first as she knelt in a shady woodside, fill- 
ing her hands with white August lilies, and soon, for 
the sake of my young enchantress, I bearded the 
guardian in his den, and then shortly came — Heaven, 
I know it was wrong, inexcusably wrong. My 
quickened conscience will not let me in the least ex- 
tenuate my crime ; but she loved me, and in spite of 
the pain it has brought us both, even yet I cannot 
be sorry for it.” 

“ She did love, and trust you, fearfully,” Laide 
said, calmly, as though she spoke of one dead. 

“ I know it. It was her safeguard. I deceived, 
but could not betray love so perfect and trust so en- 
tire.” 

“ I wish I had died while that dream lasted. It 


140 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


was the only time I ever felt fit for Heaven, and the 
sin I knew not would not have weighed against me.” 

“ Have you been happy since ?” 

“ Very happy at times, when I have done a posi- 
tively good deed or a positively bad one. The 
neutral tints are what bore me, and unfortunately 
they predominate very largely in human affairs.” 

“ Is not forgiveness a positively good deed ?” 

“ That depends. It is a part of Christian duty to 
hate some things — and people.” 

“ What do you hate in me ?” 

“Simply and entirely yourself.” 

“ You are outrageously candid.” 

“ I mean to be still more so.” 

“ How ?” 

“ By telling you that I came here to rest, and wish 
you would go away.” 

“ That was patent from the beginning. I will do 
it, if you tell me in what way I may serve you.” 

“ I have told you ; go away.” 

“ Anything but that, which is more than impos- 
sible.” 

“ Then don’t quarrel with Godfrey, whatever he 
may do.” 

“ Is he angry at my being here ?” 

“ No, but at the cause of it ; so angry, that I am 
miserable. He is the one man whom I love.” 

“ Thank you for saying that. He was the one man 
I feared, but if you loved him as you once loved me, 
you would never tell me of it.” 

“ You promise not to quarrel ?” 

“ I swear it ; but there is no need. He is very 


THE RING-ING OF BELLES. 


141 


like you, and I could not hurt a dog that looked at 
me with your eyes.” 

“ I am so tired. Please go away.” 

“ When may I see you again ?” 

“Never! if I could help it ; but I cannot escape 
the reception to-morrow night, and you are certain 
to be there.” 


CHAPTER XVII. 


“TOLL SLOWLY.” 

The storm had burst an hour ago, but Laide, ab- 
sorbed in baffling Raimund, was hardly conscious of 
it. After he left her she flung herself all along 
the cushions, crushing the lingering life from her 
fair blossoms, in her heedless pain. Raimund had 
spoken with the accent of truth, and in spite of her- 
self she believed him. She did not want to do it. 
If she grew to hold him harmless, might she not 
after awhile hate him less ? — and if she did not hate 
him she must despise herself. He had turned the 
freshness of her youth to ashes, and made her life a 
scathed and aimless thing; and now he came and 
dared to talk of love, and even to recall the days 
of her mad loving; but she did not dream that he 
remembered so faithfully, no less so than herself, 
though she craved oblivion beyond all other things. 
The sight of him hurt her cruelly, but she did not 
moan or cry out over it. She did not even pity her- 
self, but as she lay staring at the ceiling with wide 
bright eyes, there came over her a passion of regret, 
for that earlier Laide Travers who seemed somehow 
altogether apart from herself — one whose blight she 
might mourn as a flower cut down by untimely frost. 

Presently she roused herself and went back to the 
crowd, where spite of wind and thunder, and rushing 
rain without, the mirth was fast and furious. Mid- 


“ TOLL SLOWLY." 143 

night was long past, but darkness, tempest, and 
Godfreys imperative hospitality, forbade the depart- 
ure of any guest, and the brave assemblage had 
resolved to dance down the storm which grew mo- 
mently stronger and stronger. The day had been 
close, stifling, and for the season, intensely warm — 
earth, air and clouds were surcharged with elec- 
tricity; what wonder, then, that incessant flashes 
made of night’s appalling blackness a vivid clare- 
obscure, while over rush of wind and pour of rain, 
thunders pealed and crashed like the very crack of 
doom. At last it grew too fearful — involuntarily 
the music ceased, the dancers paused half-way, 
women shrieked aloud and hid their faces, and 
Laide, who alone dared watch the tempest, saw a 
ragged fire-edged cloud borne toward them with 
the speed of light. A minute later came simultane- 
ously a white blinding glare, an appalling peal di- 
rectly overhead; sulphurous fumes filled all the air, 
and a great ash-tree, not ten feet from the west en- 
trance, lay shivered to the ground, while a sharp 
electric shock ran through such of the throng as 
were nearest. In the confusion Laide’s eyes sought 
vainly for one face. “ Where, where is Cecil ?” she 
cried out to Godfrey, who, heedless of all eyes, had 
drawn her into his arms. He looked about him 
searchingly and answered with a shudder: “I don’t 
see her — what if she was in her room ? My God ! 
That tree touched her window.” Laide wrung her 
hands. “ Let us go at once and see. I am faint 
with apprehension,” she said below her breath, and 
close followed by Marion and Mr. Sumner, they went 


144 


THE HOMESTRETCH 


up the stairs and along the hall to Cecil’s door. It 
was partly open, but they found the chamber white, 
still, and vacant, with no trace of recent occupancy, 
and Laide’s heart rose up in thanksgiving, but fell 
with undeniable dread, as touching the door of a 
closet, nearest the point of danger, which was Cecil’s 
oratory, and usually close-locked, it yielded to her 
hand. She drew back nervously, then gathering her 
courage, thrust the door partly open, and stepped 
alone within. The little space was bare, white, and 
chill, with a simple shrine and crucifix of ivory, be- 
fore which a taper faintly burned. Its light made 
an aureole on Cecil’s bowed head, as she knelt with 
a rosary in her clasped hands upon the prie-dien , in 
her mist-white robe, her splendor of diamonds, her 
wealth of heaven-sent love, open-eyed, smiling, 
ecstatic and — dead. Dead ! Laide felt rather than 
saw it. To cry out would be sacrilege. The peace 
of heaven was not more saintly. Very softly she 
unclosed the door, and beckoned Mr. Sumner within, 
then went out and left him alone with his dead — who, 
her woman’s heart assured her, had died in prayer 
for him. ******* 
After the night of horrors, morning came raw and 
cold, with a wan, piteous, ghost of daylight. Si- 
lently and rapidly the stunned throng went away, 
leaving behind only a knot of closest friends. To- 
morrow at noon they would come back for the last 
rites. No priest of the dead girl’s faith was any- 
where within reach, yet what her burial might lack 
in ritual, would be more than made up in sorrow. 
They laid her within her own room apart from all 


4 


“ TOLL SLOWLY:' 


145 


the stir, and Laide sat almost ceaselessly beside her, 
with eyes bent almost enviously on the face that 
Death had sealed into eternal beauty. Happy Cecil ! 
to die thus quick and painlessly, in the first dawn 
and blush of hope, ere shadow, or coldness, or mould- 
ering blight could fall upon her love — thrice happy to 
go thus with her love’s name on her lips, straight to 
the Father’s safe-sheltering arms — the everlasting 
arms, that would hold and keep her from all possibil- 
ity of loss. Ring, tenderest chimes, oh ! faint, far bell 
— let not one mournful or jarring note rise up to this 
blessed spirit. To disturb such rest would be worse 
than sin. The bliss of heaven itself was frozen in 
her face — so white, so lovely-still — a snow-image 
that was once woman. Laide had no dread of death. 
The black-winged was to her God’s kingliest angel 
of succor, and more than once she had sighed for 
his coming; and looking now upon this ineffable 
peace, her heart rose up in longing for such rest. If 
only it might have come to her ere she knew aught 
but the joy of loving — why was the thing she so 
wished for granted instead to Cecil ? A slight 
sound startled her,- and looking across she saw Mr. 
Sumner, and would have gone away, but his gesture 
stopped her. He was wan and haggard — the shock 
had told on him terribly, and looking at his wild 
eyes and twitching lips, a great pity fell upon Laide, 
and she held out her hand impulsively, saying: 

“ She looks so happy, it would be wrong to wish 
her back; but O ! I am so sorry for you.” 

For some minutes he looked at her with quivering 
lips that vainly tried to speak, then bent his head, 


146 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


while tears that graced his manhood fell upon her 
hand- Living he had loved Laide incomparably the 
better — but this sudden death had set his betrothed 
above and beyond all other women. After a while 
he said very slowly: 

“I am glad you do not leave her. She called you 
‘ her good angel ’ last night — and I hope you will be 
so, to the end.” 

“ Do you not wish to stay ? ” 

“No,” shaking his head impatiently. “It would 
kill me to sit here and watch the wreck of all my 
peace — with gossips buzzing back and forth around 
me. I shall go and walk myself into exhaustion; 
then maybe I can sleep.” 

“ You will go away when — it is over?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Then take this now,” handing him as she spoke 
Cecil’s brief-worn ring. At sight of it he shuddered, 
and said hastily: 

“ I can’t touch it. Put it in her coffin — or any- 
where that I shall never see it.” 

Laide looked at him fixedly. “ Will you do what 
she would like best ?” she asked, at last. 

“Of course — if you can tell me what that is. 

“ Then keep it always in memory of your loss.” 

“ God knows, I need no memento of it,” he said, 
almost angrily, yet holding out his hand for the 
bauble. Laide dropped it silently into his palm, and 
he turned to go away, then suddenly faced her with: 
“You have been very good to me, Miss Travers, 
far better than I deserve; and if trouble ever comes 
to you, I hope you know where to look for a friend.” 


TOLL SLOWLY.” 


147 


Then he turned sharply away, and she saw him no 
more until they stood at the side of an open grave, 
with “Earth to earth, dust to dust, ashes to ashes,” 
resounding in their ears, while a slow bell rang its 
allotted peal, and set all the air athrob with mourn- 
ful pulses. In all her life, Laide never forgot the 
day — the trivialest things came to her with sharp 
vividness, and were recalled long, long afterward. 
She had scarcely eaten or slept since the storm, and 
each nerve was a distinct centre of receptivity. Per- 
haps it was this abnormal perception that made her 
note three who stood opposite her, together, yet apart 
— Godfrey, Mr. Sumner, and Fritz Raimund. Her 
cousin and his friend were beyond question gentle- 
men, the very best type of provincial thoroughbreds, 
irreproachable in manner, speech and habit — yet 
they lacked an indefinable something which Rai- 
mund, by grace of cosmopolitanism, possessed. She 
was glad he did not try to come near her, though 
she felt more than one appealing glance, as she 
leaned throughout the burial upon the gray, ivied 
stone marking the last sleep of Lionel Travers, and 
Adelaide his wife, “who brought sunshine to every 
shady place,” as her husband lovingly recorded, and 
died in her flower of youth, aged nineteen. If only 
she had lived — Laide’s eyes grew misty at the 
thought; she had a great longing for love that 
should be hers of right, and in all the world there 
was just Godfrey to whom she could cling. Cer- 
tainly it was very pitiful to let — 

“ The good die first, 

While they whose hearts are dry as summer dust 
Burn to the socket.” 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

ADORNED AS A BRIDEGROOM. 

“ Godfrey, don’t ride Gray Eagle to-day.” 

“Why not, little girl ?” 

“ I want him myself.” 

“Cool, I must say, to appropriate a man’s saddle- 
horse without so much as a ‘ by your leave.’ I flat- 
tered myself you were afraid he would break my 
precious neck.” 

“ I never could get up a comfortable and properly 
feminine amount of apprehension ; besides, I know 
the horse is entirely safe.” 

“ How ? You have never ridden him.” 

“No, but you bought him especially for me.” 

“ He is safe for me, and for you, too, because you 
are absolutely fearless, and couldn’t scream and be 
nervous even if you tried ; but I never saw another 
woman I would risk to manage him. A horse knows 
when he is mastered quite as well as a woman does, 
and is quite as much improved by the process.” 

“The wisdom of inexperience is simply fearful; 
but why don’t you ask me where I am going ?” 

“ I told you last night that Dr. Ellenbrod was 
sick, and can draw an inference.” 

“ Aunt Sarah is hysterical over it. She ‘ can’t 
bear to think of any member of her family associat- 
ing in any way with that Patricia Gordon.’ ” 

“ Wonder how she reconciles that with her intense 


148 


ADORNED AS A BRIDEGROOM. 


149 


affection for her daughter’s husband ; but really, 
Laide, I myself don’t more than half like the thought 
of your encountering Mrs. Oakley Ellenbrod. I wish 
the doctor would set them up a separate establish- 
ment.” 

“ I do not. Fancy Oak the head of a household ; 
besides, the tribe of Gordon would come down on 
them worse than the wolf on the fold ; and, indeed, 
I think they rather counted on that in making the 
match.” 

“ So our old friend says. The affair troubles him 
greatly. He never dreamed that Oak could be en- 
ticed into such folly, and blames himself acutely for 
not foreseeing it in time to prevent.” 

“Godfrey, Patricia Gordon is not bad per se. Her 
equivocal habits and position are due partly to weak- 
ness of character, but much more to generations of 
false teaching. She was taught that work was the 
direst disgrace, and that lax-fibred mother of hers 
was enough to ruin anybody. At first I thought her 
marriage more discreditable than any of her various 
entanglements ; but Oak is very fond of her, so I 
know she must be good to him, and if she means 
hereafter to live respectably, I, for one, shall not 
take pains to avoid her. It seems to me that is the 
crudest of social laws which, while letting a man 
live down anything, makes a woman’s past irretriev- 
able.” 

“ We do have rather an unfair advantage; but get 
into your habit in the next ten minutes and I’ll bear 
you company as far as the mill. From there I guess 
Jerry will be sufficient attendance.” 


150 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


So it fell out that upon a December day, mild, 
moist, and full of wan late sunshine, Miss Travers 
and her cousin set forth together, with Jerry follow- 
ing decorously in the rear. But outwardly, at least, 
Jerry had undergone a notable change of heart. 
The complacent sauciness, the twittering-head-aside 
carriage, the jubilate leap-frog step of earlier days, 
had entirely disappeared, partly through his mother’s 
nightly exordium — “Now you des make Marse 
Go’frey mad ergin, an’ I’ll tan de hide off’n you, f’m 
yo’ head ter yo’ heels” — but much more through his 
wish to rival Sib. Norton, another one of “ Unc. 
Caleb’s ” boy converts, whom “ de speret struck so 
powerful he ain’t nebber laughed sence he ’fessed er 
’ligion.” Vainly did Jerry cultivate a demeanor equal- 
ly solemn. He held himself under tight rein, but in 
spite of it, nowand then, he would find himself turn- 
ing a somersault over his mule’s back, or executing 
the double-shuffle on the kitchen steps, or, worst of 
all, “ de very bigges’ lick er Sat-ern,” sending up 
from artistically puckered lips the merry notes of 
reel or breakdown ; and to aggravate matters yet 
more, Uncle Ned, the skeptical, was usually in sight 
or hearing of all these various lapses. Certainly the 
straight and narrow way was for him beset with 
thorns, but for all that the missionary spirit burnt 
bright within him, and despite his awe of “ Mi-s’ 
Laide,” he yearned to reprove what he considered 
her exceeding sinfulness. True, he knew she was 
truth itself; that to the needy her hand was open as 
day; that half a score, aged and infirm, of his own 
race, owed all their comfort to her ; but then she 


ADORNED AS A BRIDEGROOM. 


151 


doubted somewhat the saving efficacy of “goin’ ter 
meetin’,” heard her own minister but intermittently, 
laughed utterly to scorn the thought that religion 
must be felt rather than lived, and, more than all, 
was the staunch approver of Uncle Ned, who in 
Jerry’s mind, was not less than the arch fiend ungod- 
liness personified. To shake her blind confidence in 
“ dat snaggle-toof ole sinner,” had long been Jerry’s 
hopeless aim ; but as they crossed the mill-stream 
and wended upward through park-like skirting 
woodland, there was born to him of the place a plan 
which he was sure could not fail of success. Riding, 
as “ Marse Go’fry ” strictly commanded him, just in 
the rear of his mistress, he heaved a deep groaning 
sigh, and said, sepulchrally : 

“ Mi-s’-Laide ?” 

“ What is it, Jerry ?” 

“ I wus des thinkin’; I ’spec you won’t b’lieve me, 
but I — I — knows somp’n’.” 

“ How badly do you want to tell it ?” 

“ I don’ want ter tell it ’tall ; but I sorter feared.” 

“ Of what ?” 

“ Mammy, an’ Marse Go’frey, an’,” with intense 
mystery, “jail.” 

“ What have you been doing ?” 

“Nothin’, ’tall.” 

“ Then what are you talking about ?” 

“ ’Tis yother folks, Mi-s’-Laide. I know you ’spises 
tale-tellin’, but dis is seri’s, an’ it’s de God’s trufe.” 

“ What’s the ‘ God’s trufe ?’ ” 

“I’m gwine tell yer. You know Oak he’s don’ 
got married, an’ las’ week me an’ Ted, dat is me an’ 


152 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


him, went fishin’ up yander, des ’crost fm de mill, 
like we been doin’ all de time, an’ he axed me ’bout 
de weddin’ an’ de buryir^’ ter we’s house, an’ I tole 
’im all ’bout how fine ’twuss, de house an’ de supper 
an’ all, an’ how sweet you did look wid dem flowers 
all strung erbout yer ; an’ bimeby he say, ‘ Did Ellis 
look fine, look fine ?’ an’ I tole ’im yes, sir — e — ee, he 
did dat, des as fine as broadclofe close could make 
’im ; an’ er ruffled shirt — I made up dat much — an’ 
rings, an’ buttons, an’ bre’stpins, an’ er watch whar 
didn’t need no key to it ; an’ den I laughed at ’im 
why ’nt he look dat way ? Brigegrooms orter had 
fine close, an’ he wus brigegroom too, an’ den he 
sticked out his chin dis way, an’ said, sorter way up 
screechy, ‘ I have got um but I don’t wear um out- 
side, don’t wear um outside ; ’en me an’ Teddy we 
tole ’im we didn’t b’leeve it ’dout we seed it, an’ fust 
off he say, ‘ Won’t see it, won’t see it ;’ but arter 
erwhile he runned ’is han’ down ’tween ’is shirt an’ 
breeches an’ fetch out de finest sort of er gole watch, 
an’ we tole ’im ’twant nothin’ but brass, cause fust he 
wouldn’t let us tetch it, an’ he didn’t never let Teddy 
git his hands on it, but jes giv’ it ter me — stuck it right 
under my nose. ‘You smell it, you smell it,’ an’ I 
did, an’ sho’ as I’m tellin’ you it wus gole, real fine 
gole, an’ de very watch Mr. Sumner fotch yere wid 
’im.” 

“ What of that ? Oak is a famous trader.” 

“ I wus gwine tell yer. I axed ’im ‘how you come 
by Mis’er Sumner’s watch ?’ an’ he sorter jump back 
an’ put ’is han’s over ’is eyes so, like he do when he 
git skeered, an’ screeched worse’n ever, ‘ Did Sum- 


ADORNED AS A BRIDEGROOM. 


153 


ner have it, Sumner have it ? I traded with Unde 
Ned ; he must er stole it.’ Now, Miss Laide, what 
you think er dat ?” 

“Why, that your faculty of invention is simply 
marvelous,” said Miss Travers, laughing, “and that 
your story is made of whole cloth.” 

Herein she did the narrator somewhat of injustice. 
Mr. Sumner had so successfully impressed Oak with 
the necessity of secrecy that, upon Jerry’s recogni- 
tion of his prize, he had indeed declared he ‘ traded 
with Uncle Ned,’ though the accusation of theft was 
Jerry’s inferential addition, which, however, had to 
him all the authority of original revelation, and he 
was deeply shocked by “ Mis’ Laide’s” signal discredit 
of it all. Next to victory a masterly retreat is the 
best proof of genius, and in this emergency Jerry 
was not to be found wanting; so, w\th lofty humility 
. he said : 

“ I didn’ ’spec you wus gwine b’leeve me, Mi-s’- 
Laide. You never is b’leeved nothin’ sence I tole 
’bout dem paartiges, but ef God spa’ars me dat’s de 
trufe, do’ I wouldn’ er said nuffin ’bout it, ef I 
warn’t 'fear’d dar ’d be er fuss ’bout it, an’ dey’d say 
/stole it, ’case me an’ Oak userter sorter run ter- 
gether. Ef dar don’t, I shan’t nebber tell nobody 
else, not eben mammy or Marse Go’frey.” 

“ A good resolve, and see that you stick to it, for 
I will find out from Oak all about it, though I am 
very sure Uncle Ned has nothing whatever to do 
with it.” 

“ I des hopes he didn’t,” Jerry said, with an air of 
pious doubt, and then for some minutes they rode 


154 


THE HOMESTRETCH 


forward in silence that was presently broken by the 
ringing music of hounds in full cry. Laide heard it 
with tingling blood. If only Godfrey were with her 
she would turn and follow them, as Gray Eagle’s 
sharply pricked ears and dilated nostrils told that he 
was fairly wild to do. They were half a mile away, 
and running from her, and after waiting until only 
an occasional deep note came faintly down the wind, 
she tried to set forward upon her opposite way, but 
for a while vainly. Gray Eagle was evidently a 
trained hunter, whom the fierce dog-music thrilled 
as electrically as his rider, and had no mind to let 
the hunt go by default ; yet, after considerable urg- 
ing, he carne down again on all his feet, and got 
himself reluctantly in motion. Miss Travers smiled 
to herself in thinking, “ I wish Godfrey had seen 
him rear and plunge then, but all’s well that ends 
well;” and, indeed, it might have ended well, but a 
mile in front of her lay the head of a hollow that ran 
south-westwardly back to the creek, and crossing it 
with loosened rein, the wind, which blew exactly 
with it, brought the maddening chorus again to the 
horse’s ears, and ere Laide had time to think he 
wheeled square about, took the bit in his teeth, and 
with head low between his legs, went down the in- 
cline with the speed and force of a thunderbolt. 
Utterly powerless, and knowing to the full her peril, 
she yet felt a sort of exhilaration in the mad rushing 
gallop, and sat the tremendous leaps that took them 
safe over abattis of brushwood and fallen timber as 
became a thorough horsewoman, ready the while 
with rein and whip to take advantage of the slight- 


ADORNED AS A BRIDEGROOM. 


155 


est stay or pause to regain her lost control. But the 
pause never came. Gray Eagle had bottom to 
match his mettle. On, on, went the tireless stride, 
like the throb of some mighty engine. Breath-clouds 
hot as flame poured from the wide nostrils, foam- 
flakes gathered and flew from the bit, his dun hide 
grew dappled from counter to tail, and once he 
raised his head with a fierce exultant whinny. They 
were out of the long ravine, had crashed through a 
crumbling brier-grown fence, and were racing at a 
winner’s pace over heavy lowland fallow, when Laide 
saw where lay her blackest danger. The fox had 
doubled, and was coming back to them. The chase, 
though not in sight, was within plain hearing; but 
between her and the dogs ran a wide, treacherous, 
seemingly solid morass, into which a plunge would 
be death to horse and rider, and she had not power 
to check or swerve the maddened animal, whose 
course lay straight across it. She shut her eyes with 
a slight gasp. She did not believe in miracles now, 
and without one death was certain. She was not 
afraid, but it choked her to think of smothering in 
that horrible oozy slime. Mauma had told her in 
her childhood weird tales of lives that had sunk for- 
ever in its black embrace, and she wondered vague- 
ly if any one would ever know that it had proved at 
once her doom and her sepulchre. Yes, the hoof- 
marks would tell. Godfrey, when he came to know, 
would surely follow them. Poor fellow ! It grieved 
her to think how sorry he would be when the broken 
fence and big blurred place of moss should tell him 
the end and hopelessness of his search. Escape was 


156 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


impossible. The gray went still with the force of a 
hurricane. She would be crushed like an egg-shell 
did she leap off, and certain death was better, far 
better, than maimed and agonized lingering. It 
must be fearfully near now; she would open her 
eyes in farewell to life and light. For a minute she 
raised them heavenward, then closed them again 
with one low cry, for not fifty yards away lay the 
sombre, terrible swamp, full of all unwholesome 
growths, that a minute later would brush her face 
as she was hurled through and beneath them. A 
delirious fancy seized her to count the hoof-beats, in 
measure of her little inch of time — one, two, three, 
four, five, six, seven — there could not be so many 
more before the end — eight, nine ; this would not 
do. The Travers’ blood would disown one who 
faced death with shut eyes. And what was that 
noise ; the echo of Gray Eagle’s hoofs, or the tread 
of others? Turning slightly, she saw a horseman 
dashing along the boundary ; saw him spring from 
the saddle straight in front of her, and felt a strong 
grip of the reins a^>out her nerveless fingers. For a 
minute the horse reared and almost overbore his 
captor, but the steely fingers would not loose their 
hold, and very shortly Gray Eagle, panting and 
conquered, was forced upon his haunches, and his 
rider, springing safe to earth, found herself owing 
life and safety to the man she so cordially hated — 
Fritz Raimund. His presence did not surprise her. 
He had bought the Mellen farm, a half mile away, 
and set up a bachelor establishment in the rambling 
old house. Doubtless in following the hounds the 


ADORNED AS A BRIDEGROOM. 


157 


marsh had checked him, and so sent him to her 
rescue. His face was very white while he held the 
foaming, struggling horse, but a tinge of red came 
into it as he said, raising his hat as he did so : 

“ I think you owe me a favor, and I claim it.” 

“ Indeed ! What is it ?” 

“ A promise never to ride that brute again. Did 
you know he was taking you to certain death ?” 

“ Yes, but I will not promise. The horse is hard- 
ly to blame for bringing me into such danger. He 
comes of a race of hunters, and was merely following 
his instincts at the wrong time.” 

“ I wish you were as pitiful to all perverted in- 
stincts,” turning from her and busying himself with 
the saddles. 

When they were shifted, he led his own magnifi- 
cent black up to Miss Travers, and without a word 
she let him lift her upon its back ; then he sprang 
into saddle, but the gray, after his breathing space, 
was wild for another heat, and again essayed to take 
the bit from his rider. Failing in that, he grew 
fiercely unmanageable, leaping, plunging, rearing 
upright, making furious bounds from side to side, till 
Laide could scarce think him the same creature as 
the seemingly docile one to which Godfrey so con- 
fidently entrusted her. Watching the contest, she 
was nearer to terror than even in her own extrem- 
ity, and felt, in spite of herself, a thrill of admiration 
for the magnetic courage that, after subduing with 
necessary severity, soon soothed the animal into 
quietness. When it was accomplished he came up 
beside her. 


158 


THE HOMESTRETCH 


“ I am at your service now. Where may I take 
you ?” he said, with the cool yet exquisite deference 
he might have shown a stranger. 

Her tense face and dry bright eyes told him all 
too plainly her fearful excitement, and being as 
many removes from a brute as an angel, he set him- 
self resolutely to give her a reassuringly distant 
courtesy. 

“ I would rather go home, but if you please, we 
will go on to Dr. Ellenbrod’s, where I dare say we 
shall find Jerrry pronouncing my funeral oration,” she 
said, with a laugh that had tears behind it. 

His only answer was to turn the horses’ heads, 
and after a little Laide spoke again : 

“ Godfrey will thank you more than I for saving 
my life, so I shall leave him to express the proper 
amount of gratitude.” 

“ We will not talk of it now,” he said, very gently. 
“Do not even think of it if you can help it.” 

“ I cannot help it. It was so horrible ; and even 
after you came I thought once we would all go down 
in that terrible place,” hiding her eyes as she spoke, 
as though to shut out the sight. 

Passionate words came crowding to his lips, but 
he choked them back, and asked, simply : 

“ Had you lost all hope ?” 

“Yes, and I did not suffer half so much in all the 
minutes we were crossing the field as I did in the 
second of uncertainty after your coming.” 

“You must not speak of it further; it will make 
you ill,” he said, with white lips, and, marvelous to 
tell, Miss Travers obeyed him ; yet, as they went 


ADORNED AS A BRIDEGROOM. 


159 


side by side through highways and byways that so 
long ago were the scene of their brief idyl, I very 
much question if the most exciting discourse could 
have so unsteadied Miss Travers’ wonderfully firm 
nerves as the eloquent silence which so emphasized 
her life’s broken chord. Certainly there were tears 
in her voice as she said, to the man who had just 
lifted her so carefully to Dr. Ellenbrod’s doorstone : 

“ I know you risked your life for mine, but time 
alone can show whether or no you rendered me a 
service.” 

He looked up at her with kindling eyes. “ I think 
you know, too, that I would rather die with you than 
live without you.” 

Without another word Laide turned and left him. 

When Godfrey came at nightfall she had many 
things to tell him of the thrice-eventful day, and the 
recital wound up with an odd sentence: “Matri- 
mony has appreciably brightened Oak’s wits ; but it 
makes me laugh to think I ever believed he would 
part with a secret for less than he could get for it, 
even to me.” 


CHAPTER XIX. 

TOGETHER. 

“ He loved you first, lassie, and mind what I say, 
he will love you last. I’m wearing away fast — very 
fast — and I don’t want to go out of life thinking 
you’ll fling away a true heart when, it comes back 
to you, and then live to rue it.” 

All the pathos of appeal was in Dr. Ellenbrod’s 
voice, and Laide’s clear tone was touched with 
tremor as she answered slowly: 

“Anything else you might ask, I would do gladly; 
but I am chary of promises, for my father’s daugh- 
ter must not break them.” 

“ No. He would come out of the grave, I think, 
if you did; but, child, I hope you will want to keep 
the one I ask for.” 

“Then I will do it, without making it; but tell 
me, please, why you have turned match-maker ? 
Heretofore you have been nobly impartial.” 

Dr. Ellenbrod hesitated. Dearly as he loved 
Laide, it was only to the son of his lost love he 
could uncover the spoiling of his life. After a min- 
ute he said slowly: 

“.I can hardly tell myself; I like the lad. He is 
strong, and honest, and the soul of honor, and some- 
how suits you better than any other that’s ever come 
a-wooing; besides, he is a little like a friend I 1 — ost 
when I was young.” 


160 


TOGETHER. 


161 


Laide felt the evasion, and changed the subject. 
Her heart was full of pity for the gray, gaunt man, 
to whom life brought only burdens. For the most 
part he bore them cheerily enough; but to-day, in 
the weak weariness following sharp fever, he was a 
prey to fitful nervous dread, pitiful to behold. It 
was three days since her adventurous coming hither, 
and for that space the wild south wind had borne 
to them a sea of laden vapor, that poured with brief- 
est intervals a veritable deluge. It soothed and 
suited Laide. She dearly loved to be shut by the 
rain-wall in this little world of spotless comfort; 
and the entertainment of the invalid, to whom inac- 
tion was unrest, gave her thoughts the needed dis- 
traction. Of Oak she had seen but little. “ Tam’s 
a bear now — ready to bite — better not go near him 
— go near him,” he would declare, skurrying by the 
door, if it chanced to open in his presence, and run- 
ning away to the wide pleasant chamber where 
Patricia smilingly awaited him. Always smiling. 
Even Mrs. Ellenbrod, heart-broken as she was by 
her boy’s desertion, admitted that without question; 
though I think she hardly understood as Laide did, 
how. the dumb, dog-like, uncouth affection, which 
set her far above rubies, was water in the desert of 
this woman’s life. Oak showed his fondness curi- 
ously. Of caresses he had no idea, beyond now and 
then running his fingers softly over her bright hair; 
but his horse, his shells, his ropes of bird-eggs — in 
fact all his most cherished litter, was heaped in one 
grand sacrifice for her acceptance; and from none 
of his still frequent journeyings did he come back 


162 


THE HOMESTRETCH 


empty handed. Haws, persimmons, game — the gift 
of some encountered sportsman — a bit of the cake 
wherewith some neighbor had regaled him, or failing 
these, gaily-nauseous candy from the frequent coun- 
try stores, where he would invest the “ boot ” of his 
latest swap — never more than that — saying, as he 
flung down the money, “Wrap it up clean now — it’s 
for my wife — my wife.” Nomad by habit and con- 
stitution, rain, to keep him indoors, had been always 
a grievous affliction, but this one made him restless 
beyond all precedent. Patricia tried faithfully to 
calm him and for two days succeeded; but that 
morning, in spite of her, he went away through a 
furious down-pour, declaring “ Women ought to 
keep in the house, but men didn’t mind rain — and 
he had business — big business — that must be ’tended 
to — must be ’tended to.” Patricia saw him go with 
a mild sense of relief. She was tired, and no doubt 
he would come back within the forenoon, dripping 
but happy; meanwhile she would go help Tanty with 
the pastry, and after that talk a while with Laide, 
who certainly treated her with most unvarying cour- 
tesy. It was well that she did. Patricia had not by 
any means a bitter nature — but the mildest of us 
turn when trodden — and the freedom of Oak’s rub- 
bish had given her what might be dangerous knowl- 
edge; for his acquisition of the watch was there set 
down, even to the faintest particular; to be sure to 
the utter rout and confusion of capitals, grammar 
and spelling, but fairly legible for all that. She 
would fear this absence meant mischief — only the 
waters were out, and she knew his cowardice too 


TOGETHER. 


163 


well to think he would cross the mill-stream which 
happily ran betwixt him and Tom and Teddy. They 
would spare nobody if a dollar was to be had by a 
social upheaval, and once on the trail of what Oak 
knew they would follow the clew like sleuth hounds. 
If she could help it, they should never trouble Laide 
— the one woman who did not look at her askance — 
and to make sure of it she would instantly burn Oak’s 
journal, together with the letters, which by some 
fatuity he had re-copied after finding them for Rai- 
mund. It was seeing Oak last night place them 
within her bureau drawer that made her suspicious 
of his errand, and opening it she found them gone. 
The book too was missing, and like a flash there 
came to her a comprehension of the peculiar flatness 
of Oak’s great coat as he trudged away. Whom 
could he have gone to meet ? If Raimund, Laide 
need not fear. Herself, unseen, she had witnessed their 
parting — and no man would seek to harm the woman 
at whom he looked with such tender eyes. A scrap 
of soiled paper fluttered under her hand, and looking 
at it she read, “ meM. toe Goe and trade with that 
Dam skounDril elliS — Teddy calls him that,” and 
so reading, sunk down in a tremor. As much as 
hatred in her lay, she hated this man. He was the 
sum of pitiless brutality, and full, she well knew, of 
sullen resentment for the humiliation Laide had dealt 
him, so that he would delight beyond measure to 
crush her good name if ever he might safely do it. 
And he might have done it, if she had not known 
in time. For this day, the flood made all safe-*— and 
once Oak came back to her, she would effectually 


164 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


turn his purpose. With daintiest care she set about 
adorning herself, and when it was done, looked long 
and intently at what her mirror showed. She had a 
delight that was not all vanity in her own rare 
beauty — a sort of artistic sense of the exquisite con- 
tours and coloring that made her a woman of ten 
thousand, for whom a man might lose his soul, and 
not deservedly forfeit the pity of Heaven. 

The day waned, but still Oak lingered. An hour 
ere sunset the wind veered, and the low clouds 
broke away. Full of anxiety that she could no 
longer repress or conceal, Patricia set off in search 
of her husband, and some inexplicable impulse made 
Laide accompany her. Dr. Ellenbrod laughed over 
the going. Oak, he averred, was safe enough, gos- 
siping with some crony, or else snug asleep in the 
barn, or even one of the “ nests ” which it was his 
habit to burrow in the lee of haystacks. His mother 
had gypsy blood in her, and it cropped out strongly 
in the luckless son, about whose going or staying 
the uncle had long ceased to give himself con- 
cern, being well assured that betwixt craft and cow- 
ardice he would always keep out of danger. He 
went always as the crow flies, and the women, track- 
ing him by the holes his iron-shod staff had left in 
the soft earth, found themselves often tangled in 
bush, brake and brier, with now and then a slippery 
dripping fence. It was a world of water. Even the 
hillslopes were a tangle of rivulets, with a lake on 
every level, through whose limpid shallow the 
searchers splashed merrily. The trail ran straight 
towards Oak’s favorite fishing ground, a small, un- 


TOGETHER. 


165 


used, up-stream mill, where, on either side, the bluffs 
crowded in until the valley was little more than a 
gorge, through which the creek at highest flood now 
thundered a turbid torrent. Opposite, the rock-wall 
ran sheer down to the water, but on this side, be- 
twixt the mill house and the bluff, was a space of 
perhaps twenty yards that usually carried harmless- 
ly away the surcharge of the stream; but the storm 
at Thanksgiving threw a great oak across it, and 
drift and silt had so lodged and tangled about the 
massy branches as to make a perilous bridge over 
the sullen gurgling water, and the two women, 
coming out upon the overlooking bluff, were horror- 
struck to find that Oak had passed it, and now stood 
shaking with fear at the mill’s one window. At 
sight of them he threw it open and shouted wildly 
across, but the rush of waters drowned his words. 
He had crossed early, when the stream was bank- 
ful, and the weary waiting . brought sleep which 
lasted, though the rising, and waking gave such 
terror he dared not go back, though the footing 
was still secure. Laide looked at Patricia. 

“We must go bring him back,” she said; “he 
will never dare to cross alone.” 

Patricia’s eyes lit up strangely. She was not all 
a coward. 

“ You are very good, but it would be a needless 
risk ; I will go alone,” she answered, pulling off her 
shoes as she spoke. 

Laide looked again across the seething waters, 
and knew that to be effectual help must be speedy, 
for the deflected current was rapidly undermining the 


166 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


mill, and any minute it might go down in the still 
rising stream. But she did not tell Patricia. There 
was a look on the white lovely face that somehow 
brought a lump into her throat. The spice of hero- 
ism in her own nature made her catch readily its faint- 
est gleam in another. Suddenly Patricia turned to her: 

“Let me tell you why he is in danger. He came here 
to a rendezvous with your bitter enemy, and mine, and 
but for this flood, all you hold dearest would be in 
deadly peril. He did it for my sake, poor wretch. 
He wanted to show me how bold and clever he was, 
and I will save him if I die for it; but it would wake 
the anger of Heaven itself if you went on such an 
errand.” 

“ He sees but one thing at a time, and never 
meant to hurt me,” Laide said, very gently, “and I 
would still go with you if I did not know it would 
make him more afraid ; but go at once, and may 
God keep you safe.” 

A rapid fervent kiss of Laide’s outstretched hand 
was all Patricia’s answer, and through seconds that 
seemed years, Laide watched her writhe and climb 
through the jagged swaying mass and reach the mill 
door, against which the water had just begun to dash, 
where Oak, with outstretched arms, awaited her. 
For a minute he cowered and clung to her so help- 
lessly the watcher grew fairly sick in the thought 
that his poor weak head would never endure sight of 
the wild whirl ; but Patricia quickly covered his 
eyes and led him carefully, but oh ! so slowly, along 
the way she came. Half way he made a misstep, and 
broke down utterly. 


TOGETHER. 


167 


“I can’t, I can’t,” he fairly sobbed, clinging to the 
huge limb that had saved him from falling. “ I can’t 
see, I can’t walk ; go after Tom, after Tom, or tote 
me yourself. -O — o — o ! I’m drowning.” 

Patricia knelt down and essayed to lift one nerve- 
less foot. 

“ Hold to the limbs,” she said, reassuringly, “ and 
I will place your feet where they cannot possibly 
slip;” and in this manner she actually brought him 
a few steps further forward ; but the effort was vain 
as heroic, for Laide’sfear was but too well grounded. 

The mill went down with a sucking surge that 
tore loose the root-hold of the fallen tree, which, the 
next minute, lurched heavily into the current, and 
catching its full force was swept down stream. To 
the bitter end Patricia did not falter; Laide saw her 
arms closed tight about her helpless charge as the 
black tide went over them. She knew there was no 
hope. The strongest swimmer could not live in such 
a torrent as now raged at her feet, yet she had a 
wild impulse to plunge into its furious depths ; in- 
deed, in the fullness of over-wrought sympathy, she 
would have done it but for an arresting hand, which 
drew her strongly back from the perilous verge. 
The mill was an appanage of Fritz Raimund’s new 
possession, and he had come in sight just as it went 
down. 

“ I could save them from the water,” he said, 
answering Laide’s look, but they will never rise. 
Those water-logged timbers went over upon them, 
and hold like so much lead.” 

Laide covered her face with a low moan. She 


168 


THE HOMESTRETCH 


knew he spoke simple truth, but it seemed so heart- 
less to stand idle while life went out under the mad 
waters. At last she said, brokenly : 

“Are you sure nothing can be done?” 

He shook his head. “ Omnipotence alone could 
save them; but let me take you away, and I will get 
help and try.” 

“ Don’t — don’t leave them. I will go for help,” 
she cried, piteously ; but even as she spoke her 
strength went from her, and she sank almost help- 
less upon a green-mossed ledge of rock, while Rai- 
mund bent over her in unaffected concern. 

“ Drink all of this you can swallow,” he said, after 
a minute, handing her a tiny silver flask of cognac. 

Laide made a gesture of repulsion, then held out 
her hand for it and drained half its contents at a 
draught. 

“ I can go, now,” she said, rising and going swiftly 
forward. He walked resolutely beside her. 

“ Only till our ways diverge ; I go home for men 
and grappling irons,” he said, as she looked re- 
proachfully at him. 

Without further speech she hurried on — her breath 
was too precious to be spent in words — yet looking 
ever and anon into her speaking face and reading 
there how high she rated this heroic death, this clear 
and crownless martyrdom, the man beside her saw 
himself as never before through her eyes, and so 
seeing was filled through and through with a pene- 
trating sense of his own unworthy action. He too had 
wedded, knowingly, a half wit, and had not even 
pretended to sorrow when she died. Truly that was 


TOGETHER. 


160 


a poor showing beside this Magdaien, at whom 
none might henceforth cast a stone. No wonder 
Laide shrank from him. Both by blood and training 
she had the enthusiasm of honor, and now for the 
first time he grew faint-hearted and doubtful of 
success. 

Patricia’s coffin had few flowers upon it, but I 
think she would not have cared greatly, since Laide’s 
fingers lovingly wove late violets into the word 
“ Together,” and that was her fitting epitaph. 


CHAPTER XX. 

INTERNECINE STRIFE. 

There was thunder in the air at Eastbrook; not 
among the nominal heads of the household, but in 
the third estate, which had laws and customs wholly 
its own. The trouble had root in Mammy Pauline’s 
excessive godliness, and as is common with relig- 
ious warfares, the strife was bitter and furious. 
Since Jerry’s re-instatement in the household, he had 
grown more than ever in favor and influence with 
“Sister Pauline,” and betwixt them Uncle Ned had 
a life of it. He was one of the few land-marks of 
sin left by the “ ’vival ” flood; and his wife, regard- 
less of a way and walk that his employers, at least, 
thought utterly blameless, so far was it removed from 
eye-service or dishonesty, sighed, wept, groaned and 
prayed over his hardness of heart, and reprobacy of 
mind. “ But I could stan’ all dat easy enough, Marse 
Go’frey,” he said, pouring his troubles into a sympa- 
thetic ear. “ I don’ min’ dat ’ooman’s prayin’ no mo’ 
’an de blowin’ of de win’. I k’ya’arys her ter meetin’ 
nights and Sundays, an’ dar she welcome to stay ont- 
well I got ter come bak ’bout my business; an’ ef 
she shouts — an’ she’s one er de top-knots at it — I 
holes ’er up dar all jammed in ’mong um ontwell 
sometimes Ise hotter an’ wusser beat out ’an ever 
I wus in de harves’ fiel’, an’ I pays de preacher mo’ ’an 
all de big shoutin’ Chris’uns togedder, an’ helps her 

170 


INTERNECINE STRIFE. 


171 


'tribute ter ebery blessed May supper an’ ferservil 
dey has, an’ den pays her way into um, an’ nebber 
say er word uncommon ’bout none er it, an’ I laughs 
right out good when her an’ Jerry say dey gwine fas’ 
an’ pray fer me, an’ woon’t eat nothin’ ter de table 
whar I is, an’ little while a’ter I ketch um stuffin’ 
somp’n’ in dey pockets an’ see crumbs on dey moufs; 
but now, sir, she got er kink dat do beat my time. 
Yere some little spell back, “ Bro. Caleb,” as dey 
calls ’im, he took an’ preached er sarmin ’bout set- 
tin’ up de altars an’ gedderin’ de fambly’s out er 
Sat-ern’s sheep-pens like er hen gedders her chick- 
ens, an’ I tell you, sir, it hit de wimmen fo’ an’ af’. 
Dey riz up all ober de house an’ jes’ weaved erway, 
shoutin’, ‘We’ll do it, Bro. Caleb, we’ll do it. Thank 
Gord, dem debbil hawks shan’t nebber, nebber ketch 
our li’ll chickens;’ an’ fer one while dar, dey had de 
turrubles’ rumpus uver one po’ nigger wus cotched 
in; an’ all de nex’ week ebery time one ub um met 
teyother, ’twus fus’ thing, ‘ Sot up yo’ alter yit, Sister 
So-an’-So ?’ an’ sir, fo’ Sad’d’y night dey had er testi- 
ment er piece, ef it took bread outen de chilluns mouf ter 
git it, an’ dem whar had lazy free-school husban’s wus 
makin’ um blunder an’ stumble froo ‘de chapter’ in 
er way would make er mule laugh ter listen, an’ prayin’ 
out so ye kin hear easy half er mile, axin’ fer ‘de 
speret’ an’ ‘ de bride.’ I tell um dey better be axin’ 
fur meat, an’ meal, an’ close, er else er ‘speret’ ter 
werk an’ get um hones’; but dey says I’m gwine 
straight ter de debbil, an’ I bleebes mos’ ub urn’s glad 
ub it. Well, sir, Pauline she’s struck wursser’n any 
ub um. She didn’ had ter git no testament, ’cause 


172 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


Mi-s’-Laide done gin ’er er whole Bible wid pictures 
in it — an’ I ruther hear her read it one time, dan er 
whole yer ub der bes’ preachin’ — it’s so plain an’ 
clear like — but she wus bad off fer all dat. You see 
she didn’ had nobody ter read it. I do’ know ‘ B from 
bull-foot, ’ an’ she’s des sorter in de a-b abs, ’sides 
dey said ’twus man work. Caleb he tole um Sain’ 
Paul nebber ’lowed de wimmer ter speak in meetin’, 
but I’d des’ like fer ’im ter tell me how much better 
is all dat shoutin’; so she want me now ter let her 
hab dat sweet, pretty, shining Gawspil light. ‘ Bro. 
Jerry’ come ter my house ebery night an’ ‘hole 
pra-ars ’ fer us, an’ I er knowin’ him fer de limb er 
satern dat he is. Why, Marse Go’frey, ef I had two 
’ligions I hab ter get er bran-new one ebery week, 
long as you mought keep dat boy, for his triflinness 
would make er saint cuss, let ’lone er po’ ole nigger. 
I done humored dat ’ooman till humorin’ ain’t no 
good. She’s fa’ar spilt, sir, an’ when I put my foot 
down on dis las’ tomfoolery, I tell you she riz, an’ 
flew, called me bad names; ’twell I tole her I wus 
gwine have ’er sot back in de church like dey done 
’Manthy Trimble for ’most cussin’, an’ ef eber she 
da-ared ter set dat monkey er prayin’ ober me, I wus 
gwine baig you fer er deck er kyards — I stopped play- 
in’ des ter please her — an’ ’vite up Sam Nicholls f’m 
de mill, ter play seben-up wid me de blessed endurin’ 
time. Dat' wus all de way I got roun’ ’er. She 
’spises kyard-playin’, says she kin smell de debbil in 
de deck; but I can’t see it’s half de harm dat heap 
is whar de preachers does, lyin’ an’ stealin’, and 
leadin’ de gals off ter ’struction, an’ de yother sisters 


INTERNECINE STRIFE. 


173 


would all be des too glad ef dey could fin’ out she 
had it in her house, an’ Sam would sho tell, so her 
alter ain’t sot up yit; but I tell you,, sir, I is seed 
sights. Wimmen is des as comfortable as er feather- 
bed when you lets um have dey own way all de 
time, but you set out ter contrary wid um an’ dey’ll 
gib you mo’ trouble dan er onbroke mule. In de 
daytime I gits on mighty well, ’twixt doin’ my wuk 
an’ keepin’ up Jerry’s too, Ise too busy to min’ dey 
prancin’, but when it gits night an’ I goes down ter 
my house, an’ sets down by de fire, an’ thinks I like 
ter hab er chat wid de ole ’ooman, dar she is des er 
screechin’ dem hymns all de. time ’twell I for hates 
de sown er ‘ Glory-land ’ an’ ‘ Hallelujah,’ an’ half de 
time she woon’t answer when I speak ter her, an’ 
when she do, it’s shorter n de bes’ pie-crust, ’ceptin’ 
dem two fools, Jerry and Sib Norton, come in dar ter 
ax her if dey mus’n git de chu’ch ter pray de Lord 
to hole ’er up under cusepution for righteousness; an’ 
las’ night I wus so agervated wid um, I tole um time 
He hilt ’er up as long an’ strong as I had at dey 
meetin’s he’d git tired ub it an’ let her go slap on de 
do’, an’ den she jumped outen her cheer an’ sticked 
’er fingers in ’er ears, a-hollerin’ out, ‘ My po’ man, 
my po’ man. He’s possessed wid de debbil, lik’ de 
bible tells ’bout. Le’s all git down an’ pray fer ’im 
if ’e kills us,’ an’ ’fore I got done laughin’ dar come 
Hi. Poole, an’ Tansy, an’ all de yother fool niggers 
on de place, an’ lit down lik’ black-birds a’ter grub- 
worms in de plowed fiel’, an’ I come ter fin’ out ’twus 
her night for de movin’ pra-ar-meetin’ dey keeps up, 
an’ dat’s what makes yo’ han’s so no ’count an’ 


174 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


sleepy ob days, an’ I would er lit out fr’m dar lik’ I 
mos’ generally does, but I wus ba-ar-footed toas’in 
my foots when dey come, an’ Pauline she gib Tansy 
my shoes ter set on, ’ca’se she knowed I want gwine 
nebber totch no yother man’s wife, an’ I didn’ want 
er go out on de cole groun’ an’ get rheumatis, an’ 
leabe dat imp ter run you plumb ’stracted; so dey had 
me fas’ an’ tight, an’ den dey ’menced dey prayin’ 
in airnes’, an’ de way dey come at me ’fore dey wus 
done wid it wus er sin ter see. Dey called me 
‘ Ananias an’ Sapphira,’ an’ ‘ Shed-rick, Mesh-ak, an’ 
Bad-nigger,’ an’ all de yother hard names dey could 
study up er spell out in de testament, an’ if de Lord 
heard um an’ wus ter take my charicter f um um, He 
wouldn’ eben let me go ter hell fer fear de debbil 
hisse’f would git spilt, ’sociatin’ wid me. I stood it 
for two hours so quiet like, dey thought dey done 
got me sho’, an’ ’ginned ter pray fer me as ‘ dat 
trim’lin’ sinner,’ an’ I wus trim’lin’ mad, so I sorter 
aidged up dost ter de do’ whar dey couldn’t none 
um git by me, an’ I retched up an’ grabbed holt er 
my ole gun an’ sorter squared myse’f back ’ginst de 
logs, an’ said out loud: ‘ Brederin, it’s my time ter 
pray now. O Lord, I reckon I is a mighty sinful 
ole nigger, but I got some human feelin’ lef’, an’ I 
axes you ter take all dese people o’ yourn away fr’m 
yere fo’ dis ole gun goes off. Dey’s good people, 
Lord, mighty good people. I ain’ wordy ter hardly 
black dey shoes, but I thinks dey better run an 
ripen fer ’pentance. Dar’s Hi. Poole, now, he ain’t 
nebber paid Marse Go’frey fer dat shoat he borrered 
in de night las’ spring fer de chu’ch supper, an’ Tansy 


INTERNECINE STRIFE. 


175 


make mo’ butter fr’m one cow an’ Miss Sarah do fr’m 
five, whenever der parster lays dost ter her house, 
an’ Sib an’ Jerry played marvels las’ Sunday down 
in de creek bottom whar dey warn’t fear’d o’ nobody 
but you seein’ um; an’ dough Brudder Wheeler 
spen’s his time preachin’ dey Word, he’s got heap 
mo’ chillun dan ’is wife is, an’ Sister Baker always 
k’yae’s fried chicken ter meetin’, eben if she doan’ 
raise none; an’ Susan an’ Jack dar pulled wool 
enough offen Marse Charley Evelyn’s sheep ter pad 
um quilts enough ter set up house-keepin’; an’ Bill, 
an’ Tom, an’ Pat, an’ Peter, an’ Alex, beats an’ 
cusses dey mules in de week harder’n dey prays 
Sunday; an’ my po’ wife, dough her mistis done gib 
’er a Bible, an’ reads ter ’er kind an’ sweet so she’s 
bound ter know you don’ lub eye-serbice an’ men- 
pleasin’, woon’t clean up de kitchen like she orter; 
an’ our sugar an’ flour holes out heap longer’n Marse 
Go’frey’s, dough we has pie an’ cake when de preach- 
ers come, an’ dat’s mos’ all de time. So, dear good 
Lord, I think you better gib um all time fer de faith 
ter sprout an’ grow up wuks; so please move ’pon 
dey hearts ter all go home quiet now, so dis po’ ole 
sinner, whar ain’t got no quarel wid none ub um, can 
git in de bed an’ res’ some weary bones, fer dis gun 
will sho’ go off ef he holes it two minits longer, an’ 
he ain’t gwine lay it down ’twell all’s gone but de 
fam’ly; an’ now hab mussy on all o’ we, souls an’ 
bodies, work widout end, Amen.’ Den I flinged de 
do’ open an’ yo’ sheep nebber run freer fr’m de 
shearin’ pen dan dem niggers lef my house. I wus 
’stonished at dey standin’ it so, but I reckon dem 


176 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


whar I hit fus’ wanter ter fine out ef I knowed any- 
thing on t’others, an’ dem I come to las’ wanter ter 
sorter hear whar’bouts I’d foun’ um out. You see 
dey thinks stayin’ in de house I don’t nebber sees 
none er dey carryin’s on, but bless dey hearts, I 
could er tole um five times mo’ ’an I did; an’ now, 
Marse Go’frey, I tries not ter make you no trouble 
wid yo’ han’s, ner yo’ cook, ner nobody else; but I 
does want you ter tell um dey got ter let me ’lone, 
an’ if you don’ make um stop dat ar pra-ar meetin’ 
yo’ work will be des,six months behine when nex’ 
Chris’mus come. Here it is now de las’ of Feb’uary, 
an’ dey ain’t done a good three weeks’ work since 
dey sot in fer de new year. Pauline says it’s none 
er my business, but you is my business , an’ always 
gwine be.” 

“ I hope so, fervently, Uncle Ned,” said Mr. Lane, 
amused and touched by the old man’s recital of his 
woes. “I should be sorry indeed to lose such a faith- 
ful friend, and make yourself easy. They shall not 
interfere with you again, if every other man on the 
place goes packing for it.” 

“ I do’ant um ter go, Marse Go’frey. Dey’s good 
niggers enough, good as you’ll git anywhar ’bout 
yere. You’s des er bit too easy wid um, like yo’ 
pappy. Yo’ Unc. Lion use ter say, ‘ ef Lane could 
do all de work, an’ jes’ have de niggers standin’ by 
ter look at ’im, he’d be right happy,’ ’case yo’ pappy 
coul’n’ go ’bout whar de overseer an’ de han’s wus 
’dout grabbin’ up er hoe, or whatever ’twus, an’ 
1 showing um how ter do it.’ Marse Lion, now, he’d 
come by an’ look an’ laugh, an’, holler, ‘ Hurrah, 


INTERNECINE STRIFE. 


177 


boys, dats de way yo’ makes our livin’/ an’ saunter off 
wid ’is han’s in ’is pockets — han’s dat nebber tetched 
nuffin rougher’n bridle-reins, gun an’ fishin’ poles — 
an’ we all thought he wus fo’ hundred times er finer 
man den his brudder. He had us made ter work, an’ 
den gib us plenty of all we made. You’s mightly 
like him sometimes, an’ de Travers’ side is de one yo’ 
ought alwus ter show de niggers. De las’ one ob 
um but me is ’feered er Mi-s’-Laide, fer all she’s so 
slim, an’ little, an’ nebber speaks a cross word ter 
nobody; an’ yo’ jes’ be like her, an’ dey won’t gib yo’ 
•no trouble.” 

“ I’ll get her to send off Jerry,” said the master, 
laughing. “She can do it, but Tansy is too much 
for me, and I believe he is at the bottom of it all.” 

Uncle Ned shifted his feet uneasily. Despite his 
sinful bravery, Jerry’s superb piety was not wholly 
without effect. 

“ I do’ know,” he said at last, thoughtfully. “ I 
reckon he is de bell-wether ’mongs’ um, but yo’ 
mought gib him a little longer try. He’s triflin’ as de 
day is long; but if he wus put under er cyerb bit like, 
I sorter b'leebe he’d make som’p’n. I’se gittin’ ole 
mighty fas’, an’ he’s powerful handy when he try ter 
be. ’Sides, I ruther hab er boy whar I know de 
tricks of, dan one whar I got um ter learn. I kin 
manage him if you’ll des be like Mi-s’-Laide.” * 

“Who takes my name in vain ?” said that person, 
coming suddenly upon the committee of conference; 
and when all was told her she laughed and said, 
jauntily: “You are right, Uncle Ned. Godfrey 

spoils everybody, me included ; but I will make him 


178 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


save you from the Philistines of righteousness,” the 
which promise was so faithfully kept that ere long 
the bulletins of this uncivil warfare ceased to be even 
amusing, and Uncle Ned’s one eloquent effort re- 
mained without a parallel. 


CHAPTER XXL 


KALMUCK. 

The county wherein Eastbrook lies had among- its 
early settlers so many slips of best English blood, 
that from time immemorial its gentlemen had been 
patrons and habitiies of the turf, and its jockey club 
among the widest known and best renowned of such 
provincial organizations. In the smoke and glare 
of conflict it went under for a time. Even the studs 
that had sent out more than one world-famous name 
were well nigh broken up, and their flower bore to 
the front many gallant cavaliers of Stuart, Forrest 
and Morgan ; yet a few years of peace almost made 
good their losses, and revived the jockey club in 
olden strength and vigor. Of all its supporters, none 
was more staunchly earnest than Mr. Godfrey Lane; 
indeed, he was only rivaled by his step-brother-in- 
law, Major Ellis, who, though lacking all genuine 
taste for sport, was of opinion that in lavishing his 
money upon so aristocratic an institution, he went 
no small way toward securing himself a patent of 
gentle blood. With Godfrey the case was different. 
He bred, trained, and rode horses wholly for love of 
it. It was inherent in “ de Travers’ side of him,” 
which Uncle Ned so admired, and of all his inherit- 
ance, I think the stable of thoroughbreds was the 
part he would have most unwillingly resigned. His 
uncle was a turfman of renown, lavish, skillful and 

179 


180 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


singularly fortunate. There was no course of note 
in all the south country but knew the gleam of the 
Travers’ buff and scarlet that was never distanced, 
and if not the winner, always well to the front at the 
finish. A fortune much less ample gave the nephew 
a narrower scope, yet within it he was no less eager 
and daring, and being wise enough to run no horse 
that had not a reasonable chance to win, to back 
none but his own, and then only to such an extent 
as he could comfortably lose, the penchant brought 
him much real pleasure with little of trouble or per- 
plexity. 

The race course lay a mile above the Court House, 
in a wide meadow skirting the narrow rapid river 
which threaded the sleepy village, and here, upon a 
soft bright day, when February sunshine was bring- 
ing the second spring’s violets all over Cecil’s grave, 
the spring meeting was drawing to a close, and the 
beauty and bravery of six counties were there as- 
sembled, for the week’s brilliant racing was to wind 
up with a thrice notable event — a dash of four miles 
for the challenge cup, run for but once in each five 
years. It was properly a steeple chase with gentle- 
men riders, to which only aged horses were admit- 
ted, for leaving the race ground a furlong from the 
start, they went up the clear valley, across stretch- 
ing grassland, leaping, as. they found them, hedges, 
fences and perilously broad drains, floundered in the 
“graveyard,” a stretch of boggy clay, so named be- 
cause it was death to the chances of any flyer who 
lacked staying power, for just beyond came a leap to 
try, to the uttermost nerve, breath and muscle over 


KALMUCK. 


181 


an embanked ditch that must be passed ere they 
turned to sweep homeward down the smooth-beaten 
levels of the river road. It was all in plain view of 
the grand stand, which was built upon a convenient 
swell, and there in early afternoon of this bright 
February day a most various assembly feverishly 
awaited the starting. A dozen horses were in the 
field, yet it was felt rather than known that the con- 
test lay betwixt two — Beltran, the entry of Major 
Ellis, whom Charley Evelyn had agreed to ride, and 
Kalmuck, the property and especial pride of Mr. 
Godfrey Lane. 

The animals were close akin, and both magnificent- 
ly thoroughbred, the sons of a sire whose line went 
back through winners innumerable to imported 
Eclipse, the grandson of that Eclipse who “ won the 
race with the rest nowhere,” and first beat the time 
of Flying Childers, while side strains brought the 
blood of Diomede, Highflyer, Marske and Regulus, 
and further back, Byerly Turk and Godolphin Ara- 
bian, Barb mares and Bay Bolton, took the line up 
to that convenient mist which enshrouds the begin- 
ning of equine no less than of human aristocracy. 
Beltran’s dam came remotely from Trifle, the famous 
old mare who, though under five feet, was never 
beaten at four miles, and she had few worthier de- 
scendants than the glancing white-starred cnestnut, 
who stood sixteen hands, and was from crest to toe- 
point the strongly-symmetrical model of a racer. In 
temper he was docile yet spirited, with soft intelli- 
gent eyes that had surely a soul behind them, and 
altogether I do not wonder that Mr. Evelyn chose 


182 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


to ride him, since he thereby not only displayed his 
most excellent horsemanship, but doubly provoked 
Miss Marion, with whom just then he was upon the 
terms of polite aversion consequent upon a lover’s 
quarrel. 

Kalmuck was out of a crossed Tartar and Arab 
mare, and his basin face, pigeon-blue coat, flat clean 
legs, and quarters too powerful for symmetry, pro- 
claimed to all eyes his eastern blood, while a savage- 
ry, tameless as that of desert and steppe, made him 
equally the terror of groom and stableman and the 
delight of his owner, who, howsoever lacking in mas- 
tery of his own kind, could rein and vanquish this 
fiery creature with a nerve and hand of iron. Though 
a full half hand lower than his competitor, Kalmuck 
matched him fairly in speed and stride, while the 
broad breast and massy shoulders bespoke wind and 
lifting power that would tell in the coming contest, 
if only the devil, so plain-shown in glaring eye and 
wide-inflated nostril, did not make his rider lose irre- 
trievable time. Of that, though, Godfrey had little 
fear. The horse knew him thoroughly his master, 
and was even fond of him after a wild unstable 
fashion. Alone with his master he would follow like 
a dog, and obeyed readily the faintest word or touch, 
but — save for Miss Travers, from whose fearless 
palm he w r ould condescendingly take lumps of 
sugar, though he never permitted the freedom of a 
caress — any other presence awoke all his antagon- 
ism, and made him a veritable war-horse clothed 
with thunder. So it is no wonder that upon this 
day of teasing din and bustle he deserved the 


Kalmuck. 


183 


groom’s vigorous characterization, “ de re’ale debble 
on hoofs, sir.” 

The saddling bell had just rung, and Laide, most 
eligibly placed betwixt Marion and Mr. Sumner, 
heard a voice beneath her say, “ Then Beltran has a 
walk-over,” and turning about, full of startled appre- 
hension, suddenly faced Lucia’s husband. 

“ Isn’t it too bad, Miss Travers ? That brute has 
kicked Godfrey, so he will not be able to ride,” he 
said, full of real triumph and affected concern. 

For answer, Laide merely touched Mr. Sumner. 

“ My cousin is hurt ; take me to him,” she said, 
steadily, though her face was white; and a minute 
later they were threading close-packed groups, that 
somehow made way for them as easily and silently 
as though they had just been cleft asunder. 

If Laide saw, she did not note the tall lithe figure 
just in front that took such pains to clear her path, 
and arrived in Godfrey’s presence, she was equally 
heedless of eyes that thirstily drank in her face. In 
his year of sojourning here, Fritz Raimund had 
come near her whenever he decently could; but since 
that day beside the whirling murderous water, he 
had never thrust either himself or his love upon her, 
and not all Lucia’s finesse nor her spouse’s brutal di- 
rectness could avail to discover what lay under the 
surface of his early acquaintance with Laide, who 
showed him always courtesy so superbly distant it 
was more baffling than intensest scorn. How she re- 
garded his wistful devotion nobody knew. By com- 
mon consent, since the day of her rescue, his name 
was unspoken betwixt her and Godfrey, and there 


184 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


was none other to whom she ever opened her heart. 
Very few women can refuse pardon to a sin, no mat- 
ter what its dye, that has root in love of themselves, 
but Laide differed quite as widely from the average 
woman as she did from the model one, and I think 
was entirely honest in telling herself that her pas- 
sionate contempt for this older lover was not less 
steadfast now than at first, but simply less acute. 

They found Godfrey the picture of furious woe. 
The kick got while bending to look to the safety of 
Kalmuck’s plates, had fallen just back of the temple, 
and but for an interposed protecting wrist, which 
was likewise disabled, might have made an end of 
him, but that gave him no manner of concern. His 
horse was backed heavily against the field, without 
even bar of forfeit, so his friends and following must 
be losers if the race went by default, and winning 
with any other rider than himself was thought to be 
impossible. He hated defeat for himself badly 
enough, but it was a hundred times worse when it 
involved others. So he stood somewhat faint and 
giddy, nursing his sprained wrist, the picture of rue- 
fulness, while Laide, entirely reassured by his vigor 
of malediction, unfeelingly advised him, though his 
head was hard, never again to try conclusions with 
Kalmuck’s heels until the race was over, at which 
the ghost of a smile straggled into his face, and he 
answered, slowly : 

“ I never wished you were a man before, Laide, 
but just now I do, for then you would ride that 
scoundrel and do as well as I.” 

Miss Travers swept him a deep courtesy. 


KALMUCK. 


185 


“ Even better, I think, for he should come in first, 
as I know he can, if both of us died for it.” 

“ I’d give half I’m worth if you could,” Godfrey 
said, gloomily. 

“Why not let me try? I am more than willing,” 
said Mr. Sumner, moved beyond prudence by his 
evident distress. 

Godfrey laughed outright. He was the loyalest of 
friends, and on no other point would he admit even 
the possibility of discounting Mr. Sumner, who, with 
a trained horse and fair road,- was an easy and even 
graceful horseman; but it was worse than ridiculous 
to think of a city man mounted upon this mass of 
sinewy fire, from whom the most reckless rough- 
riders stood respectfully aside. 

“ Impossible, John. There isn’t time for you to 
make your peace with God and man before the race 
begins,” he said, pulling himself up sharply after a 
minute. “ Besides, if there must be a funeral, I’d 
rather it should be Kalmuck’s. The boys want to 
shoot him for fooling them so, and I’m tempted to 
let them do it.” 

Godfrey’s inevitable defeat hurt Laide sharply, 
more than if it had been her own, as indeed in good 
measure it was. The sting of it lay in the triumph 
of Beltran’s owner, who, so he won, would care 
nothing for the ingloriousness of such victory. 
Looking up, she met for the first time Raimund’s 
earnest gaze, and the next instant, obedient to her im- 
pulsive gesture, he stood with bared head before her. 

“ You will ride Kalmuck ?” she said, with impera- 
tive interrogation, 


186 


THE HOMESTRETCH 


“ Gladly, if Mr. Lane permits,” he said, looking 
across to that person. 

“ Mr. Lane accepts with thanks,” Laide said, hasti- 
ly; then turning to her cousin, detached from his rid- 
ing jacket the knot of bright ribbons her own fingers 
had so lately fashioned, and without more ado, fast- 
ened it on Raimund’s breast, while Godfrey could 
scarce repress a whistle, and Mr. Sumner looked on 
in green-eyed wonder, too dazed to do more than 
obey silently when she bade him take her back 
whence they came. 

As the drum tapped the horses got away together, 
a gallant and goodly and mettlesome sight, as they 
went in swift-breaking rank down the stretch to the 
low hurdle that let them out from the regular 
course. They could pass it but four abreast, for on 
this side a drain ran down from the hills, and the 
yawning furrow it had cut through alluvion, clay and 
gravel, down to the sharply-jagged bedrock, was util- 
ized as a sort of sunk fence, and strongly bridged 
where the track led across it. Beltran went over 
foremost of the first flight, but Kalmuck’s rider made 
haste more slowly. Laide, watching with strained 
gaze, marveled somewhat at his tardiness, but God- 
frey beside her almost chuckled, “ Well done ;” and 
so set at ease, she looked athrill with pleasure as 
they swept across the grassland, crashed through 
the hedges, went safe and scathless over fence and 
drain, though Beltran led easily and Kalmuck had 
not even the second place. But soon the grave-yard 
told a different tale; the flyers, half spent in reach- 
ing it, floundered hopelessly in the stiff hough-deep 


KALMUCK. 


187 


clay, and though the chestnut still went gallantly as 
horse might, the gray locked him as they rounded 
the turn, and coming first to the crowning leap, took 
it without seeming effort, and for a breath’s space 
stood alone upon the homestretch, while a ringing 
shout went up from his erstwhile doubting partizans, 
and hands were shaken and hats flung wildly in air. 
The next minute, by a supreme effort, Charley 
brought Beltran beside him, but not for long. Better 
horse than the chestnut was never foaled of mare; 
but rash riding began to tell, and as they thundered 
down the embanked river road, daylight widened 
steadily betwixt him and the gray, whom now, for 
the first time, his rider let out to full pace, and even 
the backers of the other horse were fain to admit the 
.magnificent stretching stride deserved to win. They 
came back into the course over another bridge, half 
a furlong from where they left it, and there a hurdle, 
backed by brushwood, was placed for the final leap, 
and if Kalmuck held his present pace, he would 
reach it fifty yards ahead. Godfrey was in triumph- 
ant ecstacy and Laide tumultuously happy, when 
suddenly, without one warning demonstration, the 
horse bolted sharply from the track, while a hundred 
throats sent up the shout that a thousand quickly 
echoed : 

“ Beltran ! Beltran ! Hurrah for Beltran and 
Charley Evelyn !” 

Raimund heard it with set teeth. There was one 
mad alternative to certain defeat, and he accepted it 
without hesitation. The horse shot in and backward 
at a tangent to his course, and if he could only send 


188 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


him across the deep drain, with its perilous crumb- 
ling water-worn banks, he might still come in win- 
ner. Failure meant death, but for that he did not 
care, and drawing still a few strides further back, he 
turned the horse’s head and set him straight at it, 
scanning with cool eye the yawning fissure before 
him. If Kalmuck reared or balked at the brink, both 
would be lost on the steep rocks below, and Laide, 
watching with suspended breath and a sense of 
blood guiltiness fairly appalling, saw through her 
glass the rowels go deep into the quivering flanks as 
the gallant brute was lifted to the mad mighty leap. 
He surely could not make it. All about her were mur- 
murs of “ impossible,” and she grew cold and sick, 
remembering the gaping stony depths into which 
she had looked often as their carriage crossed the 
bridge. He would die, and she must answer for it; 
but no, he had cleared it, and with scantest- pause he 
swept on to the track again, locked Beltran, whose 
rider rose in his stirrups and waved his hat high over 
his bare head. Together they passed the distance 
pole, almost together they went under the string, 
and while the most wildly ringing shout ever heard 
upon the course rolled and echoed over woodland 
and valley, Charley flung himself out of saddle to 
say, as he wrung Raimund’s hands : 

“The rules make a cut-off foul riding, but I’ll 
shoot the man who says you didn’t win fairly, by a 
neck.” 

So the challenge cup was won, and Godfrey su- 
premely happy; but I think his vicar cared more for 
the hand Laide freely held out to him when, a little 


KALMUCK. 


189 


later, he went to her with the Travers’ gold-and- 
scarlet still fluttering on his breast. He knew the 
badge — in his youth had more than once met Lion 
Travers — and knew how high he rated the triumph 
of his colors. As Laide’s eye fell on the ribbons, a 
swift flush lit her face, and seeing it, he handed 
them to her with a faint smile : 

“ I knew they were rightly yours,” he said, very 
low, “ and swore they should come in first, or not at 
all.” 

While the jockey club endures and the challenge 
cup is run for, Kalmuck will be its hero and his 
story its classic. By actual measurement, nine-and- 
twenty feet from heel to toe-prints did the good 
horse cover in his fearful stride, and that too pretty 
well at the finish of a four-mile run. No wonder the 
groom said, as he rubbed away the foam-wreaths : 

“ I seed dat wus sorter oncommon man when he 
got on dis critter ’dout his cuttin’ up no shines ; 
but dat jump is too much ter b’leeve. Maybe he 
mought do it ergin. I don’t say no, but ef he do, 
men, I tell you de debbil hisself will ha’ ter be a-rid- 
in’ ’im when he do it.” 


CHAPTER XXII. 

UNCLE NED’S THANKSGIVING. 

“ I TELL ye, Sam, dar aint no mo’ comfortable 
nigger in all de cotton country dan I is now.” 

So speaking, Uncle Ned was indeed the very 
moral of comfort, lounging at ease in his great splint 
chair, with unshod feet a-toast upon the clean-swept 
hearth, where, despite the lush leafage of hill and 
valley, and the soft May star-light all abroad, a 
stump fire sent up its red smouldering flashes. Op- 
posite sat his wife, the picture of restful silence, and 
betwixt them was his prime crony, Sam Nicholls, of 
z//z-pious renown ; but their recreation was nothing 
more harmful than a dish of general gossip. As time 
mellowed his wife’s fervor into tolerance, Uncle 
Ned, who at heart was a chivalrously devoted hus- 
band, grew exceeding careful to do nothing to hurt 
either her feelings or her standing “ as a member 
by consequence there was an armistice that prom- 
ised to terminate in mutual surrender. 

“ Yes,” repeated the old man, “ we is comfortable 
— so comfortable dat ef things run dis smoove all de 
time, I don’ b’leeve eben de ole lady dar would keer 
much ’bout gwine ter heaben. Las’ year dey wus all 
tangledy, wusser’n de broaches my ole miss uster 
make me reel when I wus little ; but now de kinks 
is all com’ off’n um, an’ dey runs lek dem broaches 
when I got ’most ter de eend. 

190 


UNCLE NED'S THANKSGIVING. 


191 


“Fust off, ye see, de crop’s des right, planted fus in 
de neighborhood an’ all er growin’ an’ er blowin’, an’ 
de boys keeps it right sharp clean now, sence dey 
don’ quit dat pra’ar-meetin’ foolishness er nights, an’ 
can keep deyse'fs ’wake in de daytime, an’ dough 
somebody habs er fesservil ebery Sad’d’y night dey 
sleeps um off o’ Sundays, an’ dats er mighty savin’ 
ter der ’ligions. Caleb ain’t had ter church none 
on um sence ’way yonner las’ October, an’ eben 
Jerry ain’t mo’n half as agervatin’ sence he’s growed 
up so powerful tall. I don’ ha’ ter get a’ter ’im mor’n 
twiste er week now, an’ ef he keep on ’provin’ ’twell 
Christmas, Pauline may hab ’im ter pray fer ’er, an’ 
welcome, fer he do talk right pretty, dough I can’t 
make out mor’n half he say sence he bin ter dat free 
school. Den de gyardenis des lek what dey tells me 
’bout dem scripcher places — green peas ’twell ebery- 
body’s tired ob um, an’ big red strawbe’ies by de 
bushel, an’ de cows gibs all de cream dey kin hole, 
an’ chickins is fryin’ size, an’ fish bites as free as I 
pulls um out de water, an’ up yander at de house ’tis 
Sunday all de time, now ’at Miss Sarah stays so 
much wid dat yaller-headed gal er hern whar no- 
body couldn’t nebber please ef dey tried er whole 
year, an’ Marse Charley is cornin’ ergin reg’lar ter 
see Miss Mail, an’ I spec’s dey’ll marry ’bout nex’ 
fall, an’ er nice couple sho’ as you born, ef she is ’er 
mammy’s chile, an’ he did tried ter beat Marse Go’- 
frey fer de cup, an’ cep’in’ when dat Mis’er Ra’thun’ 
comes erbout, an’ she gits sorter skeered an’ solemn 
thinkin’ ’bout dat jump, an’ how when dey went ter 
medjure it, de dirt fell in whar his hoofs lit, Miss 


192 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


Laide’s peart as er cricket, des lek de chile whar 
useter run an’ ride wid er pappy, only some bigger 
an’ purtier, an’ dough she tried ter sen’ off all her 
beaux, an’ says she’s gwine stay single des fer aggra- 
vation, Mis’er Sumertime ain’t forgot de way ter 
dis house, . an’ / don’ b’leeve ’tis all on ercount er 
Marse Go’frey, neider.” 

Various other people were of Uncle Ned’s opinion, 
and I cannot conscientiously affirm that Miss Tra- 
vers made any very strenuous effort to prevent the 
justification of their faith. Coquetry, like other vices, 
grows upon its victims, and though Laide had re- 
nounced her lovers as sincerely as a nun might her 
tinsel and gewgaws, she honestly admitted to God- 
frey that time often hung heavy on her hands, and 
if Fate insisted on flinging back at her feet this 
heart that she once so freely gave into worthier 
keeping, she was surely not to blame for it. 

I can hardly analyze Mr. Sumner’s feeling; it was 
such an intermingling of devotion and perplexity. 
Laide was, beyond question, the one passion of his 
life, though, if Cecil had been spared to him, I do not 
doubt his life with her would have been smoothly 
even, and at times calmly happy. He mourned her 
honestly, but as Time, the inevitable healer, brought 
him balm of consolation, the earlier, stronger love 
came back with redoubled force, and brought him 
back, in spite of everything, the captive, bound and 
helpless, of this fair feminine Philistine. He loved 
her beyond reason, prudence, or judgment, but 
under the love ran a seething current of jealous 
anguish over the knowledge that other arms had 


UNCLE NED'S THANKSGIVING. 


193 


held his snow queen in their clasp, other lips had 
lawlessly drained the sweet madness of her kisses. 
Feeling that no truth can be so damaging as half 
knowledge, Dr. Ellenbrod had told him all that 
early episode with baldest faithfulness ; by conse- 
quence the bare sight of Raimund was gall and 
wormwood to him. If only he would show himself 
Laide’s insultingly aggressive wooer, or more proper- 
ly, take himself out of her way forever, Mr. Sumner 
would delight either to baffle or overlook him alto- 
gether; but the patient, persistent propinquity which 
the early lover so resolutely affected, sometimes sent 
his rival to the very verge of insanity. So it is no 
wonder that while Uncle Ned was holding his ser- 
vice of thanksgiving the two men glared at each 
other across the width of the parlor, where Godfrey, 
Marion, Laide and the inevitable Charley right mirth- 
fully bore them company. Glared one at the other, I 
would better have written. If Raimund had felt a 
call to slay his worst enemy, he would have done it 
with strictest courtesy ; but his antipathy, if impas- 
sive, was not less positive. For this state of things 
Miss Travers was more than incidentally respons- 
ible, and I fear took wicked pleasure in setting them 
by the ears. The propensity inheres in the feminine 
nature, and she who successfully combats it, is as- 
suredly little lower than the angels. In extenuation 
it must be told that, as a lonesome wooer, Mr. Sum- 
ner was certainly rather triste , and though Mr. Rai- 
mund knew by heart every inflection of the verb 
“ Amo,” a flash of rivalry now and then helped won- 
derfully to illumine his peculiar perfections. Though 


194 


THE HOMESTRETCH 


the force of circumstance and regard for appearances 
had long made him free ofEastbrook, his visits were 
infrequent, and he never tried to monopolize Laide, 
as was just now Mr. Sumner’s evident purpose, to 
which Godfrey gave cordial support, while Charley, 
who had never lost enthusiasm for his conqueror, 
was equally bent on thwarting it ; so kept up a run- 
ning fire of jests that, to Miss Travers, appeared 
wonderfully brilliant, relieved as they were by a 
background of solid sentiment. If Mr. Raimund 
knew the worth of his self-constituted ally, he did 
not show it, but devoted himself as earnestly to 
Marion’s entertainment as though that alone was 
the purpose of his life. It was not a difficult task. 
The girl was full of light-hearted loving, that was, 
somehow, infectious ; besides, her first disappoint- 
ment in Mr. Sumner inclined her to give a good 
second to Charley’s laudable efforts to break up and 
render bootless his tete-a-tete with Laide, and she 
knew well that the shadow of a shade upon her 
sunny face would call offMr. Evelyn instantly. God- 
frey was at his wits’ end. Good fellow and prince of 
gentlemen as he unquestionably was, he felt himself 
over-matched by these subtle youthful manoeuvers, 
and his friend’s success lay close to his heart. Rai- 
mund had so far overcome his prejudice that Laide 
once well Mrs. Sumner, he was ready to take him 
into cordial fellowship ; but so long as by help of 
those idiotic children he remained a lion in the way 
of that most desirable happening, he could scarcely 
give him even a decent toleration. Something must 
be done — what, he did not clearly see ; but anything 


UNCLE NED’S THANKSGIVING. 


195 


must be better than a longer submission to Charley’s 
impertinence; so with the courage of desperation he 
approached his cousin, saying : 

“ Laide, I am fearfully sentimental to-night.” 

“ Is it so catching , I wonder?” quoth Charley, in a 
loud aside. 

“Very. The bare sight of you is sufficient infec- 
tion,” neatly retorted Mr. Lane; “but I want to ask 
Laide for a song.” 

That person was somewhat astonished. Since 
Cecil’s death none of them had ever touched the 
piano in Mr. Sumner’s presence, and it was unlike 
Godfrey to waken willfully memory that must be pain ; 
but hesitation would only make the matter worse, 
so she answered, teasingly : 

“ ‘ Sing ! sing ! What shall I sing ? The cat ran 
away with the pudding-bag string’ ?” 

“No, no. Give us instead, ‘Fare Thee Well, 
Sweet Sum?zer,’” was Charley’s shocking attempt at 
a pun. 

“ Impossible ! I hate unseasonable music. Just 
fancy singing that without a lot of faded finery to 
give it a touch of appropriate melancholy,” Miss 
Travers said, glancing complacently down at her 
crisp fresh gown. 

“Then we will hear it ‘When the Swallows 
Homeward Fly’ ?” 

Words cannot convey the meaning Charley’s tone 
threw into his harmless query. 

“ It depends ; but I order you to be silent, that I 
may hear the rest of my cousin’s grievance. I learned 
before I could speak, I think, that that peculiar ele- 


196 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


vation of his left eyebrow meant a want of some- 
thing, though what, he did not exactly know.” 

“ In the century or so since then I have learned 
to find out.” 

“ Indeed ! I am delighted ; but I would like to 
have proof.” 

“ What I want just now is a song.” 

“ It strikes me he said that before ; but let him, by 
all means, have it, Miss Laide,” said Charley, bow- 
ing profoundly. 

“ And let it be a love song — the best love song you 
sing — for you know he said he was full of sentiment 
to-night,” chimed in Miss Marion, while everybody 
laughed outright, so notorious was Godfrey’s distaste 
for the honey-upon-ginger-bread style of melodies. 

“ ‘ The best love song I sing,’ ” Laide repeated, 
slowly; then a fire of sudden purpose coming into her 
eyes, “Well, I will give it to you, one of the very 
few I ever felt and rising, went alone to the piano, 
and in a voice not powerful, but clearly vibrant, half 
sang, half recited to a monochord accompaniment : 

“In love, if love be love, if love be ours, 

Faith and unfaith can ne’er be equal powers — 

Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all. 

“ It is the little rift within the lute, 

That by and by will make the music mute, 

And ever widening, slowly silence all. 

“The little rift within the lover’s lute, 

Or little pitted speck in garnered fruit, 

That, rotting inward, slowly moulders all. 

“It is not worth the keeping. Let it go. 

But shall it ? Answer, darling, answer no, 

And trust me not at all, or all in all.” 


UNCLE NED'S THANKSGIVING. 


197 


In the hush that followed the last cadence, she 
felt rather than saw the eyes of both lovers burning 
upon her face. 

Did her choice mean to convey either message or 
warning, or was it but the caprice of a critical taste ? 
Both felt relieved when Charley broke the silence, 
saying, lightly : 

“ So, Miss Laide, you leave us to infer that a ‘ want 
of confidence ’ is your unpardonable sin in a lover.” 

“Mistaken as usual,” Laide said, tranquilly. “I 
have three unpardonable sins, but that is not among 
them.” 

“ Indeed ! What are they, then ?” 

“Stinginess, stupidity, and bad grammar. For 
any other crime, in or out of .the Decalogue, I could 
find instant and ready excuse if I loved a man ; but 
those three are utterly past redemption.” 

You are too severe, Miss Travers. Injustice should 
be always tempered with mercy,” said Mr. Raimund, 
now, for the first time, speaking directly to her. 

His were the only eyes before which Laide’s had 
ever fallen, but now she met his gaze with unlowered 
lids, and answered, lightly : 

“ I hate half measures. Mercy, to be worth any- 
thing, must be wholly unmixed.” 

“ And equally unmerited ?” 

“ I can’t tell about that, as I never felt myself par- 
ticularly a ‘ crimiyal,’ as the darkeys say.” 

“ That is an enviable unconsciousness. If only I 
might share it ; but come out with me for a minute. 
The starlight is like a dream of dawn, and I must go 
away very shortly.” 


198 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


Almost wondering at her own acquiescence, Laide 
went silently beside him to the west piazza, whence 
they could see in the gray brilliance the stretching 
panorama of hillside, woodland and sleeping valley. 
On the crest of a far hill a speck of radiance showed 
like a glow-worm in the grassy distance. He point- 
ed to it, saying : 

“ There is my abiding place, but my life is here. 
Tell me, am I going to lose it ?” 

“ How could you ?” 

“ That is a needless question. You know what I 
feel, and how I swore never to give you up till the 
coffin lid closed between us ; but now, seeing at last 
the blackness of my sin, I am ready to forswear my- 
self and bury my mad hope deeper than ever plum- 
met sounded, if only ” 

“ What ?” 

“You will tell me that you love Mr. Sumner well 
enough to be happy with him.” 

“Like Harry Percy’s wife, I ‘never tell that which 
I do not know.’” 

“ Then don’t you ?” 

“ ‘ Things that are equal to the same thing are 
equal to each other,’ which please apply to my ig- 
norance in the matter.” 

“ Don’t trifle, please. I am in deadly earnest. I 
want to see your life noble and nobly loving, as God 
meant it should be. To wreck it, as I did at the 
very outset, was more sin than murder, and I would 
gladly atone for it, even if it cost my banishment 
into outer darkness.” 

“ Are you anxious I should marry Mr. Sumner?” 


UNCLE NED'S THANKSGIVING. 


199 


“If you love him, not otherwise.” 

“ Then stay away from me for a small eternity, for 
I cannot help tormenting him whenever you are at 
hand, and jealousy makes him so idiotic, my sense of 
the ridiculous warps my perception of his really fine 
character.” 

“Do you wish to marry him? — if you can get 
your own consent ?” 

“Well,” with a demure smile, “it would please 
Godfrey.” 

“He is rich.” 

“Yes.” 

“Well bred, and handsome.” 

“ Very.” 

“ And not ‘ stupid/ either ?” 

“Except sometimes. ‘The lunatic, the lover, 
and the poet ’ are generally of that amiable quality 
‘all compact/” 

“ Then he is stupid ?” 

“ There are honorable exceptions.” 

“So he is altogether irreproachable ?” 

“ Very much comme il faut .” 

“ By contrast with me a saint.” 

“ Of whitest radiance ; but,” lifting her eyes swift- 
ly to his, “ I don’t think he could ride Kalmuck, and 
I know he would never have won on the home- 
stretch.” 

Who shall say that the sphinx was not a woman. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

COME, HASTE TO THE WEDDING. 

SUMMER waxed and waned. The grasses bloomed 
and bourgeoned to their fall. Again the cotton fields 
spread out their snowy harvest, and with the ripe- 
ness of September came Marion’s wedding day. It 
made little stir at Eastbrook. The shock of tragedy 
that closed in Lucia’s nuptials was too fresh in all 
minds for that, but jolly Squire Evelyn was all aglow 
with pride over the marriage of his son and heir, and 
made it the occasion of a grand ingathering. Lura, 
his pretty daughter, and Laide, were the brides- 
maids, though the latter had turned shuddering 
from the first mention of it, and only yielded to 
Marion’s urgent entreaties. The girl had been so long 
her pet and plaything she could deny her nothing, not 
even to “stand up” with Mr. Raimund, without whose 
presence Charley stoutly affirmed he could, but 
would not , be married. So that person was sum- 
moned from the banishment to which Laide had so 
ruthlessly consigned him, and as, after the brief cere- 
mony, they rode in silence side by side across the in- 
tervening valley, and up the long slope to the light- 
ed Evelyn mansion, Miss Travers marveled to find 
herself grown almost tolerant of this man, whose 
presence, not two years agone, had so filled her 
with loathing dread. It seemed a nightmare of 
memory now — a blurred misty horror, from which 


COME , HASTE TO THE WEDDING. 


201 


she had, somehow, come out into the sunlight. She 
had had a happy summer with Marion and Godfrey ,* 
since he went away — so happy, she was sorely 
grieved by this break in their circle. But those 
children were so absolutely blissful, to repine over it 
would be a sin. All true women love Love, espec- 
ially in the blossom, and Laide, under all her law- 
lessness, was intensely womanly. “ The good angel 
of engaged men,” Charley christened her, when she 
so tactfully kept meddlers conveniently remote from 
his not-too-frequent tete-a-tetes , and swept away 
the flimsy pretexts upon which Marion’s mother 
sought to delay the wedding. He could not be 
grateful enough, but if only he might, in some de- 
gree, open her eyes to the manifold perfections of 
Raimund, who was, in Mr. Evelyn’s opinion, worth a 
worldful of Sumners, and only too glad to kiss where 
her shadow had fallen, he would feel the obligation 
in some measure lightened. Nature, he was sure, 
made them for each other, and he wondered not a 
little as to what was the social complexity which 
held them so hopelessly apart; for, despite the van- 
ity natural to man in measuring the chances of his 
sex, he was very well assured that Miss Travers’ in- 
difference to his hero was by no means feigned. 

As the bridal party swept into the thronged par- 
lors, there was murmured admiration on every hand. 
It was the perfection of contrast. The Lanes were a 
black-browed race, and Godfrey’s olive-tint set off 
wonderfully the sunny fairness of Lura Evelyn, while 
Marion’s soft contours and peach-blossom face made 
yet more apparent the spare, sinewy grace of her 


202 


THE HOMESTRETCH 


tall young husband, and Laide, pallor’s self, save lips 
of dazzling scarlet, showed a statue spell-wrought 
into life beside the ivory-bronze of Raimund. Mr. 
Sumner ground his teeth over the sight. All sum- 
mer he had so haunted the vicinage of Eastbrook, 
his presence was now looked upon as a matter of 
course, and Raimund’s disappearance had given him 
much ease of mind. For though he had in theory all 
a man’s contempt for easy winning, and rated his 
lady love the higher that others madly sought her, in 
practice he found the absence of a rival eminently 
desirable, since, despite his undeniable equanimity 
and solid sober sense, his lack of graceful audacity 
left him often very much at the mercy of his capri- 
cious enchantress and her more collected wooer, 
whose diabolical calm he did not believe even an 
earthquake could in the least disturb. 

As the night went by the dancing grew fast and 
furious. The wide square rooms, with folding doors 
between, were fairly alive with the mazes of quad- 
rille, cotillion, even the old-time reel. Outside the 
cities the waltz has never gained much vogue in the 
south country, and though Laide excelled and de- 
lighted in it, it was very rarely that any other than 
Godfrey was her partner. To-night he was some- 
how strangely neglectful, and as, obedient to the call 
of a few daring couples, the band sent out a familiar 
measure, she felt a thrill of genuine surprise to see 
her cousin in the gliding whirl, with Lura in her 
place. Bread-and-butter misses were, in general, his 
aversion, and Lura was just seventeen. If Godfrey, 
the always sensible, did lose his head over her, the 


COME, BASTE TO THE WEDDING . 


203 


concentred folly of a whole youth could not fail to 
make him a very pretty spectacle. She smiled a 
little at the thought, and Mr. Raimund, noting its 
provocation, said, very slightly extending his hand : 

“ Shall we not go with them ?” 

For a minute Laide hesitated. The pealing strains 
of the “ Blue Danube ” set all her pulses throbbing. 
She loved dancing as only such vivid vitality can, 
yet she would have given him a refusal had not Lu- 
cia, still the most remorseless of critics, whom she 
delighted to horrify, been within certain ear-shot ; 
besides, Mr. Sumner brusquely interposed the orig- 
inal remark : 

“ It is very warm, Miss Travers ; let me take you 
to the hall.” 

For answer she made him a smiling gesture of dis- 
sent, and held out her hand to Raimund without a 
word ; yet, as his arm encircled her, a quick shudder 
went through and through her sensitive frame — it 
was so small a space since she had thought she could 
not endure his touch and live. They went round 
the long circle ere either spoke, then Raimund said, 
pressing ever so slightly the hand he held : 

“ I wonder if you ever dream how I thank your 
perversity ?” 

“ Not so much, I dare say, as I do your compre- 
hension. I half feared you would think I wished to 
dance with you.” 

“You have given me no room for such a mistake, 
though I think my obedience merits some little re- 
ward.” 

“ ‘ Virtue is its own reward. ’ Confess, now, you en- 
joyed your absence as much as I did.” 


204 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


“ If enjoyment means going to and fro, seeking 
rest and finding none; in being devoured with long- 
ing for the sight of one face, the sound of one voice, 
a smile from lips that are cruel to you only, then I 
did enjoy it thoroughly.” 

“ Don’t rave so ; it spoils our dance. Besides, I pre- 
fer to respect even my enemies, when I can.” 

“ Am I your ‘enemy’ ?” 

“ I think you are, negatively. All summer I have 
been a pattern of goodness; so much so, indeed, that 
Tansy says I ‘jes’ lacks er pa’r o’ turkey wings ter be 
a full-growed angel ;’ yet, since you came to-night, 
I am wickeder than ever, and have done no less than 
three things to give Mrs. Grundy the ague, and left 
undone others of equal moment.” 

“ Charley’s letters told of your impending canoni- 
zation, but the sins of commission and omission you 
yourself must enumerate. I have seen nothing of the 
sort.” 

“ I painted my lips, which is bad.” 

“ Indefensible, I must say.” 

“ I openly snubbed Mr. Summer, which is worse.” 

“ I don’t agree to that.” 

“ And I have given you this waltz, which is simply 
dreadful.” 

“Very — to think it will so soon be over, and I 
may never have another.” 

“Why?” 

“ Because I can hardly hope for such another con- 
junction of adverse planets as sent you to me this 
time.” 

“ I am glad you are so reasonable, for I did not 


COME , HASTE TO THE WEDDING. 


205 


know but you were about to take an affecting fare- 
well, forever, and tell me you meant to make a 
‘demnition corpse’ of yourself, all on account of mes 
beaux yeaux .” 

“If I did, would you care ?” 

“ Very much. It would make one so unpleasant- 
ly notorious ; besides, I hate horrors.” 

“ Laide, if you ever marry me, I shall be at a ter- 
rible disadvantage. You have no respect for me, 
whatever.” 

“ Do you think I will ever do that ?” 

“You will, if I can compass it.” 

“ What of Mr. Sumner ? I thought you went away 
out of regard for him.” 

“ I went away because you bade me. Do you 
think I would have given a man I feared a clear 
field ?” 

“ If I asked it, yes.” 

“ Because such asking would be the best proof of 
harmlessness. You know what love is, and will 
never marry any man for less than that.” 

Charley stepped in before them. 

“ It may be superfluous information,” he said, with 
judicial gravity ; “but I must tell you that the dis- 
satisfied quadrillians find waltz-time a very pretty 
section of eternity; consequently the pater has or- 
dered no end of ‘ hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys and 
reels,’ and henceforth to-night the hugging will be 
strictly private.” 

“You will never be less than a terrible infant, 
Charley,” Laide said, laughing, as she walked away 
with him. 


206 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


“ I wish I could be an ogre or a hawk ‘ for a spell’ 
— long enough to scare that gold-bug out of your 
path,” inclining his head toward Mr. Sumner. “ I 
don’t mean to be impertinent, Miss Laide. You 
have been my best friend, and I’d like to see you as 
happy as I am ; but please don’t even think of com- 
paring that hulking fellow with — the noblest man in 
the world.” 

Miss Travers looked at him with a curious half- 
smile. 

“ Who is your standard of nobility ?” she asked, a 
little dryly. 

“ Lancelot of the Lake, ‘the truest lover of a sin- 
ful man that ever loved woman.’ You first told me 
of him — read me his epitaph when I was a mere boy 
one rainy Sunday, at Eastbrook, and though I have 
read it over and over since then, and learned his piti- 
ful story by heart, that early memory is the strong- 
est.” 

Laide could not answer. She knew Charley spoke 
in all innocence, yet the subtlest advocate could 
have chosen no better exemplar of perverted nobil- 
ity as a shield, wherewith to turn away her wrath — 
if, indeed, she felt any. Through the cadence of the 
music it rang in her ears, “ The truest lover of a 
sinful man that ever loved woman,” and under the 
ashes of her dead love stirred a faint ghostly thrill. 
She had been cruelly bitter, yet with what faithful 
tenderness he had endured it all. She had wandered 
away from the dancers to the quaint homely sitting- 
room where Marion was singing to her delighted 
new father, “Douglas, Douglas, Tender and True,” 


COME, HASTE TO THE WEDDING. 207 

and listening to the fresh, tender voice, full-freighted 
with love and hope, tears sprang unbidden to her 
eyes, and were only kept from falling by the ap- 
proach of a presence that roused her always to in- 
stinctive antagonism — the magnificently stately one 
of Mrs. Lucia Ellis. Matronhood had, if possible, 
intensified her intolerance, and given her a wealth 
of sublimely condescending patronage for all women 
who either could not or did not marry. Laide sel- 
dom escaped a lecture on the horrors of impending 
spinsterhood, the only point of attack left by her 
late exemplary behavior ; but now her own con- 
sciousness, no less than the glitter of Lucia’s violet 
orbs, assured her she would be held to account for 
weightier matters. An impartial observer would 
have said that, seeing there was neither kinship nor 
friendliness, nothing, indeed, save the accident of 
having been brought up together between them, not 
to mention that Laide was older, with much wider 
social experience, Mrs. Ellis’ assumption of a men- 
tor’s place was somewhat ill-timed and presumptu- 
ous ; but that view, you may be sure, was one she 
did not entertain. “The end of a maid was to be 
married,” and she was married; ergo, it was at once 
her duty and principle to set social metes and 
bounds which none, whom she had the misfortune to 
know intimately, might overpass under penalty of 
instant nagging, in which noble art she was discred- 
itably proficient, and, indeed, I have found it, 
throughout my experience, a most usual escape 
valve for excessive amiability. 

In general Laide only laughed over what she felt 


208 


THE HOMESTRETCH 


to be manifest impertinence, but to-night it roused 
her to unwonted wrath, though, when the purring, 
cooing voice said, “ Laide, why will you give people 
such room to talk ? Major Ellis says all the men 
are laughing over your rebuff to Mr. Sumner,” she 
answered, tranquilly enough : 

“ They might be worse employed.” 

“ I cannot see how.” 

“ I can ; for example, in meddling with matters in 
no way concerning them.” 

“ I suppose you mean that for me ; but I shall do 
my duty in spite of sarcasm, and Mr. Sumner is a 
most eligible person, whom we would all be glad to 
see you marry, while the man for whom you slight- 
ed him may be a mere adventurer ; and really to 
waltz with him — you wi\\ get the name of being fast, 
and people talk about you enough already.” 

A bitter retort rose to Laide’s lips. She knew that 
Lucia’s closet held more than one domestic skeleton. 
Her husband drank often to inebriety, and the jar- 
ring clash of his fierce temper and her smooth ob- 
stinacy was only too notorious ; but she crushed it 
back, and said, rather slowly : 

“ Let it rest for to-night, Lucia. I want Marion’s 
wedding to be without a cloud, and next week you 
can tell me whatever you have heard.” 

“ It is not much to tell ; only since this Raimund 
has come back here, people begin to remember that 
they saw him years ago, and some say you would 
have run off with him if Dr. Ellenbrod had not sent 
you to the convent.” 

“ You may tell them they lie, and I’ll answer 


COME , HASTE TO THE WEDDING . 209 

for it, said the gaunt old man, of whose near pres- 
ence Lucia was unconscious, rising, as he spoke, 
from the depths of an easy chair, and taking Laide’s 
hand to lead her away. “ I don’t see, lass,” he said, 
as they threaded the crowd, “ how you and that 
venomous creature can be made on the same pat- 
tern. In you a gentleman was spoilt to make a 
woman, and she would better have been a gilded, 
coiling snake ; but she is hardly to blame. ‘ What’s 
bred in the bone, comes out in the flesh,’ and her 
father was the smoothest legal scoundrel that ever 
helped cheat the gallows.” 

“What an‘easy way to answer for our sins, to lay 
them on the shoulders of our ancestry. Tell me, 
pray, where do I get my faculty of beguilement ?” 

“ From mother Eve, I think ; and yonder is a 
most disconsolate Adam. Stop your whimsies, 
child, and make him happy, as he deserves to be. If 
only I can see that, I will be ready to depart in 
peace.” 

A provoking smile was Laide’s only answer ; yet, 
when a little later they came abreast of Mr. Sumner, 
she gave him a glance so beaming that he instantly 
followed them, and very shortly took the place of 
the elderly escort, who was only too glad to resign 
her into such keeping. 

“ ‘ Oh ! for a falconer’s voice, to lure this tassel 
gentle back again,’ ” was Godfrey’s malicious aside, 
as he passed them on his way to claim Lura for 
another dance. 

“ A steady diet of bread and butter has a happi- 
fying effect on your wits,” retorted Miss Travers, in 


210 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


the same key, whereat Mr. Lane grew red in spite of 
himself, for he lacked woefully the grace of assur- 
ance, and had cherished an insane hope that his de- 
votion at this most virgin shrine would go unnoted, 
— at least by his teasing cousin — who showed herself 
henceforth so appreciative of Mr. Sumner’s presence 
that his passion quickly rose to highest flood, and 
cynical Mr. Wilby was moved to say : 

“ The proverb says, Raimund, ‘ Every dog has 
his day,’ but you two,” with a comprehensive 
wave of his hand toward a tall figure with a smaller 
one beside it, going slowly back and forth in the 
clear moon-rays outside, “ it seems, have only a night 
betwixt you.” 

“ For all that, I’d hate to run against the man who 
rode Kalmuck,” said the president of the Jockey 
Club. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


CASTLES IN SPAIN. 

** Take her from the festal boards, 

Lead her to the starry skies ; 

Keep her, by your truthful words, 

Pure from courtship’s flatteries.” 

If Mr. Sumner had known aught of Mrs. Brown- 
ing, he would doubtless have applauded to the echo 
the words above written ; but though, in most 
points, a moderately well-read man, he had an un- 
holy horror of rhyme, and poetry was to him a terra 
incognita. But if he did not know the quotation, he 
acted it most strictly, and drew Laide away to a 
bench of rock and turf, where the moonbeams 
dripped their silver rain through the slender sway- 
ing screen of a weeping willow, and spotting and 
flecking her masses of blended white and scarlet, 
transfigured her, the spirit of snow and fire. She 
leant motionless against the rough tree trunk, her 
hands softly folded in her bright fleecy shawl, and 
flinging himself on the turf at her feet, for a while he 
was more than content with merely gazing upon her 
loveliness. So white, so still, so saintly, the piquant 
mockery of her shining eyes drowned in the flooding 
moonbeams — speech to break such calm would be 
almost sacrilege, and under the spell of silence, al- 
beit he was little given to such airy architecture, he 
builded a fair castle, wherein they two went hand in 
211 


212 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


hand, and she was fair for him only, until the end of 
time. It was no new occupation. Throughout the 
summer the foundation was laid broad and deep, and 
many stones polished for the wall’s up-rearing. Un- 
til to-night, she had shown him no trace of the law- 
less caprice that earlier had so pained him, and he 
had hugged to his heart the fond belief that the 
change was of love’s making. If only she would be 
always thus gentle, thus womanly-tender, he could 
forget everything, save that he loved her, and win 
and wear her with almost the same single-hearted 
triumph as if Raimund had never come between 
them. 

Almost, not quite. He could forgive generously, 
but it was not in his nature to fail of remembering 
the forgiveness, and woe to Laide if, once his wife, 
she dared to be the woman God made her in prefer- 
ence to the woman her husband would have her. 
She comprehended it intuitively, and if the exact 
truth must be told, had spent the last six months in 
the working out of a problem, to wit, whether or not 
she could endure the repression necessary to fit her 
for the place which she could not help knowing 
awaited her acceptance. 

What the solution was nobody knew. Whether 
love had come to make the yoke easy and the bur- 
den light, or the game had grown wearily not worth 
the candle, the wariest of wise men could not say ; 
but who had eyes to see might readily understand 
that Mr. Sumner’s malady was much aggravated by 
her sunnily-immaculate courtesy. If he loved her 
madly in spite of himself, he loved her twice as well 


CASTLES IN SPAIN. 


213 


now with full consent, and I only wonder that he 
had not long ago screwed his courage to the sticking 
place, and learned his fate beyond peradventure; but 
if the truth must be told, Mr. Sumner had grown a 
trifle cowardly, and rated so high the hope that 
Laide loved him he hardly dared risk its loss, even 
for the chance of certainty ; besides, love-making, 
when Miss Travers had not a mind to suffer it, was a 
task to appall the stoutest heart, and, for reasons of 
her own, she had chosen to keep him hovering in the 
wide debatable land betwixt non-committal and 
declaration. To-night a strange passiveness pos- 
sessed her. She was tired of it all, and if he chose 
to speak out, why better soon than later, now that 
she felt clearly how to answer him. At last he half 
raised himself and tried to take one of the folded 
hands, looking the while into her eyes with mute 
appeal ; but she drew it slowly away, in evasion 
rather than repulse, so he rose and stood for a minute 
beside her, saying, rather disconnectedly : 

“ I shall go home to-morrow.” 

“ Indeed ! I am sorry. Godfrey will miss you 
sadly.” 

“Laide,” sitting down beside her, “I — I — that is 
— you know what I want to say, but I am so wretch- 
ed a blunderer, and I love you so, it makes me ten 
times a worse idiot — can’t you — will you let me go 
away as hopeless as I came ?” 

“ I do not think you were very ‘hopeless.’ ” 

“Why?” 

“ You would not have come, if you had been.” 

“ Well, then, say uncertain. I am not sure that 


214 


THE HOMESTRETCH . 


you care at all about me, and I’d give ten years of 
life to know.” 

44 That I don’t ?” 

44 No, no ! That you do ; that you love me well 
enough to marry me. There ! I’ve said it, as awk- 
wardly as ever man did ; but don’t mind that, and 
tell me quickly that I am not hoping in vain.” 

“ Do you really and truly want me ?” 

44 You surely cannot doubt it. I have tried to say 
so a hundred times before, but you would never let 
me.” 

44 And you would give your name, your fortune, 
your life, into the keeping of a woman whose hand 
you know is stained ?” 

44 Don’t speak of that, darling ; don’t even think of 
it.” 

44 Would you never do it ?” 

44 1 would — try not,” with a hard breath and hot 
flash of color. 

“Mr. Sumner, if I hurt you, forgive me; but I 
must speak the truth. Of course I have long known 
what you meant ; those I love best have been 
your warm allies and advocates. You are a man by 
whose choice any woman might feel honored, and 
now for six months I have honestly tried to make 
myself love you, and I cannot do it.” 

44 Who stands between us ?” 

44 Nobody. I wish almost I could say I loved 
another man.” 

44 In Heaven’s name, why ?” 

44 Because it would make forgetfulness so much 
easier to you.” 


CASTLES IN SPAIN. 


215 


“ I will not forget ; nothing shall make me do it ; 
and as to love, I have enough for both. Only marry 
me, and I will make you happy or die for it.” 

“ That is more than impossible.” 

“ Why, indeed?” 

“ Because it would take love, and a great deal of 
it, to make me an endurable wife for any man. I 
should be worse than sorry for a husband I could 
barely tolerate.” 

“ Love would come in time.” 

“ Never. If I must say it, you could not love me 
too well to doubt me, and if I married you I would 
have to make myself anew, and renounce in your be- 
half all other friends. I doubt if you would ever tol- 
erate Godfrey, and though perfect love counts noth- 
ing a sacrifice, without it I would inevitably grow to 
hate you.” 

“ Indeed, I would not be jealous.” 

“You could not help it. Do you not remember 
the warnin g I gave you ?” 

“ When ?” 

“ In that song. It struck the key-note of my lov- 
ing. ‘ Trust me not at all, or all in all none other 
is worth naming.” 

“ Laide,” catching both her hands in a hard clasp, 
“ you make me wild with your cold-blooded reason- 
ing. I am no match for you in talking, or indeed in 
anything ; but I love you better than all the world. 
Can you — will you send me away desolate ?” 

“ I must ; I have played with you too long al- 
ready.” 

“Six months of a fool’s paradise. You have, in- 
deed, been cruelly kind,” 


216 THE HOMESTRETCH 

“ I am sorry, so sorry. I wish heartily you had 
never seen me. You were a generous friend in time 
of need, and I have made you a bitter requital ; and 
badly as it would hurt my vanity, if I could I would 
take the glamour from your eyes and make you see 
me as I know myself, with all my imperfections on 
my head, and then, after a little, you would rejoice 
in your freedom.” 

“ If you are so sorry,” drawing her towards him, 
“you cannot hate me very much.” 

She broke sharply from his hold, saying, with 
quick tremor : 

“ No, I do not hate you ; but blackest hate is 
nearer to love than the indifference I feel for you.” 

“ Then I suppose Mr. Raimund is the favored one 
after all. Godfrey has often assured me you hated 
him.” 

The palpable sneer awoke Laide’s demon. Her 
pity vanished like the dew of dawn, and she was 
about to answer him with bitter scorn, when some 
strange new impulse moved her to look into his face, 
and seeing it white and set with sternly blazing 
eyes, there came to her such knowledge of the mis- 
chief she had wrought, her anger died more quickly 
than it had life, and she went toward him with out- 
stretched hands, saying, with softest pleading : 

“ Please forgive me, and let us not part less than 
friends.” 

For one minute he looked coldly at her; but there 
was no resisting those beseeching eyes. He could 
not speak, but covered her hands with silent, pas- 
sionate kisses, then bent and touched lightly her 


CASTLES IN’ SPAIN. 


217 


forehead and her lips, and went, sore-hearted in- 
deed, out of her path forever. 

Laide stood where he left her, until big slow tears 
began to fall and glitter in the moonbeams, yet 
they were tears of sympathy, purely. For the name 
and fortune she had put so resolutely aside, she had 
no manner of regret. She had tried honestly to love 
him, being somewhat aweary of the life she led ; 
but failing in the laudable endeavor, she felt no call 
to be an uncrowned martyr, and had fearlessly told 
him so. Marriage, for aught save love, was, to her, 
profanation of the holiest holy. Once she, too, had 
built her castles in Spain, where 

“Joy was duty, and love was law,” 

and two walked therein together, whose lives so 
overflowed with the riches of Heaven’s largesse as to 
be a perpetual beneficence of noble doing ; two who 
should be friends in the highest sense, and lovers to 
the good day when God should call them home ; 
who should be pitiful and tenderly helpful to all less 
fortunate souls, and full of appreciation for God’s 
good world and the people he puts in it. The lov- 
ing faith that made it all not merely possible, but 
real, was vanished quite away, but memory held 
“ the tender grace of the day that was dead ” too 
faithfully to admit the profaning of its ideals. 

“ ‘ Where are you going, my pretty maid? ’ ” quoth 
Godfrey, barring her way in the side entry, which 
she had tried to gain unperceived ; then, catching 
sight of her wet lashes, “ but what, pray, has set vou 
to playing Niobe ?” 

“ I can guess,” said Charley ; “ ‘ Babylon is fallen/ 


218 


THE HOMESTRETCH 


and she is weeping over the greatness of the captiv- 
ity.” 

“ Don’t waste your sympathy, young man. It will 
be your ‘night to howl’ very shortly, when Raimund 
starts to Siberia,” Godfrey answered, mildly savage, 
convinced by Laide’s silence and the tremor on her 
lips that Charley’s random shot had hit the white, 
and angry with himself for not suffering her to pass 
unnoted. 

“ That would be a good place to try and catch a 
Tartar, if he fails here ,” Charley said, making his new 
elder brother an elaborate reverence, while Laide, 
half laughing through her tears, ran upward to the 
dressing-room. 

Scarce was she gone when a gray woolly head was 
thrust within the door, and obedient to Uncle Ned’s 
cautious beckon, the two gentlemen went forward. 

“ I’se mos’ dead wid laughin’ — ke — he — he — e,” he 
panted, “ an’ I wants yo’ two des ter see dat imp on- 
beknowin’ ter ’im ; but you musn’ git mad, Marse 
Go’frey. He des mawks you fer fun.” 

“ Of course not,” said Mr. Lane ; “ but where is the 
show ?” 

“In de kitchen ; come dis way,” and soon, through 
knot-holes in the board-shuttered window, they saw 
what sent them both into silent spasms. Jerry, made 
up into a really startling likeness of his employer, 
was acting “Marse Go’frey” to a select dozen of 
the blacks, who, upon such occasions, are scarcely 
less numerous than the whites, for all who ever be- 
longed to “bridesmen and groomsmen, and brothers 
and all,” are sure to flock in to “de weddiit’ at our 


CASTLES IN SPAIN. 


219 


house,” from which they go always with full stom- 
achs and often with full hands. The boy was a first- 
rate mimic, and but for his choice and collocation of 
words, a listener might have sworn Mr. Lane himself 
was speaking. 

Jerry had been very wide awake to all the happen- 
ings of the supper table, where “ Marse Go’frey” 
had, of course, been Miss Lura’s cavalier, and it was 
this particular phase the henchman was now repeat- 
ing, supported by Miss Lura’s own maid in the role 
of her mistress. 

“ Ah — a — a — hem,” said Jerry. “ Miss ’Manthy — 
Miss Lura I mean — it’s very warm to-night ; le’ me 
fan you.” 

“ Te — he — ke — ke — ke ; I do’ know what ter say. 
take somebody else,” giggled ’Mantha. 

“Oh, shucks ! You jes say, ‘Well I declar’,’ an’ 
‘To be sho’,’ an’ ‘You makin’ fun er me now,’ er 
some such ; dat’s all de white ladies mos’ly does, it 
don’t make no diff’rence which. Now, Miss Lura, 
will you have some turkey ?” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ I wish I wus turkey ; now you hide ’hine yo’ fan 
an’ say, ‘ Don’t you make no fun er me.’ ” 

“ Don’t you make no fun er me.” 

“You little sweety-beauty, how can you even ex- 
pect me of such a thing. I wouldn’t do it fer nary 
cake on dis table, an’ if you will ’low me the com- 
mission to say so, you look sweeter this blessed min- 
it than all de sugar-roses on de bridescake.” 

“ To be sho’,” from the obedient ’Mantha. 

“You is that, an’ I ’most wishes you was one of 
um. Now, say, what’s that for ?” 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


m 


“What’s that for ? Ke — ke — ke — ke.” 

“ So I could eat you up ’thout havin’ ter answer fer 
it to de gran’ jury ; but I b’leeve I wouldn’ do it 
neither, fer I ruther look at you an’ ter eat sugar.” 

“ Did you really pile on the agony in that style ?” 
whispered Charley, between his paroxysms ; but Mr. 
Lane was too intent on the performance to answer 
him. 

Jerry went on, grandiloquently: 

“Miss Lura, I have got de possession of house an’ 
land, meat in de smoke-house, corn in de crib, an’ 
cows in de parster ; hogs, sheep, horses, swines and 
cattle, feather-beds and kiverlids, and silver spoons 
and waiters, a buggy an’ er ka’rage ; but I ain’t got 
no housekeeper. You see my mother she disposes 
ter remain wid Mrs. Ellis, an’ I can’t raise no projec- 
tions to it. My cousin is goin’ ter marry Mr. Sum- 
mer-time, my dis-trang-y friend, jes’ as soon as we 
kin persuade her ter say yes, an’ your Charley has 
been an’ come an’ got my sister away, an’ I want ter 
make it er even swap.” 

“ Jerry is developing a variety of talents. I never 
knew before he was clairvoyant,” again whispered 
Charley, while ’Manthy gasped out between her gig- 
gles : 

“Well, I declare.” 

“ That ain’t no answer,” cried Jerry, in high dud- 
geon. “Miss Lura said, ‘Well, ax pa about that; 
he’ll want somp’n’ ter boot, I know.’ Den Marse Go’- 
frey, ‘He may have all I got ter boot, ’ceptin’ 
’nough ter keep you in clover, for sho’ as you born I 
never wanted no other young lady ; but mad dogs 


CASHES m SPAIN. 


221 


won’t keep me from cornin’ ter see you. Expose 
now you accompany wid me ter church, Sunday; 
now, ’Manthy, ‘ You’ll break my neck.’ ” 

“ You’ll break my neck.” 

“ Not if you say ‘yes ef you don’t, I’ll ” 

“Jerry,” said Mr. Lane, making two strides to the 
door, “go and hitch my horses this minute. It is 
time to go home.” 

“ Well done, though a trifle overdrawn,” was 
Charley’s comment upon the performance. 


CHAPTER XXV. 


ENDS IN SMOKE. 

“ LAIDE, I have some news for you.” 

“Indeed! I am wearily glad of it, for it really 
seems like the happening of things is one of the lost 
arts in this stagnant country. I have been worse 
than weary of nothing for a month.” 

“ Why don’t you make something happen ?” 

“ Because there is nothing I especially want 
done.” 

“ Therein we differ very widely, for I want several 
things done.” 

“ And what are they, I pray you tell ?” 

“ Firstly, I want Christmas to come and go.” 

“ I don’t, for by that time Charley’s renovations 
will be over, and he will take away my pet for good 
and always.” 

“ I know it ; and have you thought of it ? if we do 
not instantly get married Mrs. Grundy will have 
spasms.” 

“ You certainly don’t mean we should marry each 
other ?” 

“ No, though we might do worse ; but, you see, I 
have no fancy for pistols and coffee with half a 
dozen, and for a man without a fighting reputation 
to think of marrying you would be about equivalent 
to signing his own death-warrant, now that your 
flirting propensity has such a wonderful renaissa?ice .” 

222 


ENDS IN SMOKE. 


223 


“ I must say you are as graceful in execution of 
the cray-fish movement as any man I ever saw ; but 
I do assure you it is love’s labor lost. I think too 
much of you ever to marry you.” 

“ Too much of some one else, you mean.” 

“ I admit, Godfrey, that generally you can guage 
my feelings accurately enough by your own ; but in 
this instance you are mistaken.” 

“ I would not swear to it ; but not to beat about 
the bush any longer, Lura has promised to be my 
wife, the eighth of January, and what have you got 
to say to it ?” 

“ Only that if you call that ‘ news ’ you are an im- 
poster — a wicked, transparent imposter. Why, it has 
been more than a foregone conclusion these last two 
months, and I have but one regret in the matter.” 

“ What is that, I pray ?” 

“ That I did not suggest it to you. It is so entire- 
ly fit, and proper, and delightful ; she is altogether 
such a little darling. I can hardly forgive my- 
self for not thinking of it before you did. You know 
I have been in some sort the conscience of your 
affections every since you quitted roundabouts.” 

“ And many a scrape you have kept me out of, by 
your quick insight and merciless teasing. What 
would have become of us without each other, any- 

V* 

way r 

“ Oh ! you would have been pater familias ten 
years ago, and wretchedly sorry for it, and I, the 
heroine of half a dozen duels. You will never know 
how you have influenced me for good. When I did 
a shocking thing you did not fume and scold over it. 


224 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


but the thought of your quiet pained face kept me 
effectually from repeating it, and even in the black- 
est days you made me sure God had not forgotten 
how to make a gentleman ; and now I wish you all 
the happiness you deserve, and nobody could wish 
you more.” 

Godfrey’s eyes were misty as he bent to kiss his 
cousin. The jealous selfishness that would have 
made so many women shrink from yielding the first 
place in his love, he knew had no place in her noble, 
wayward nature, and though he loved Lura with 
steadfast fire, and prized beyond measure her warm 
love in return, he felt it would have been dearly won 
if the winning had lost him Laide ; and in the full- 
ness of his new joy he silently promised that she 
should never find him less than her good comrade, 
her loving friend, her staunch defender ; and that in 
home and heart she should stand always next his 
wife, whom she was ready to love for his sake until 
she could love her for her own. And what ca- 
pacity for love she had. If only John Sumner could 
have found the open sesame ; but really he knew 
positively nothing of how matters stood betwixt 
them, though, from that gentleman’s conspicuous 
absence of late, he had a shrewd suspicion that the 
wedding proved his Waterloo, and that reminded 
him of an unread letter then resting quiefMy in his 
pocket, and he said, looking up from its perusal, a 
few minutes later : 

“Laide, what does this mean ? John writes from 
Havana that he is so in love with the diversion of trav- 
el, he will go on to Europe and stay there indefinitely.” 


ENDS IN SMOKE . 


225 


“Why, that he has a mind ‘strange countries for 
to see.’ What else can it mean ?” 

“ I thought maybe — don’t you wish you had gone 
with him ?” 

“ Well, no — o,” very reflectively. “ I do like trav- 
eling, but not with a mother-in-law, ‘ that impossi- 
ble she, the sum of all perfections in a woman be- 
sides, I fancy it is only as an uncompleted entity 
that Mr. Sumner would ever undertake travel. The 
woman who marries him must content herself with 
life a la Darby and Joan.” 

“ Laide, from the first you did him injustice. He 
is a thorough gentleman, and the best fellow I ever 
saw.” 

“ I am ready to admit it.” 

“ Then why in the name of contrariness did you 
refuse him ?” 

“ How do you know I did refuse him ?” 

“ Too well to need your telling me so ; but I really 
would like to know the reason. He is nearer the 
man I would marry, if I were a woman, than any 
other I know.” 

“ Tastes differ radically.” 

“I think sometimes maybe it was the lack of op- 
position. Confess, now, that had I forbidden him 
the house, you would be Mrs. Sumner, in spite of 
the mother-in-law.” 

“ I hardly think so.” 

“ Then what was it ?” 

“ T I did not fear the strain of curiosity would be 
too great for your present frame of mind and body, I 
would be silent as a desert, but as it is, I will tell 


226 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


you he was too perfect. Just think of having to live 
always with a man who never made you comfortably 
ashamed of him. I never could love a man who 
made me feel so inferior, and my husband, if I ever 
have one, must have enough faults or even vices to 
make him thoroughly likeable.” 

“ That raises my hopes to a dangerous pitch, Miss 
Travers. If imperfections are necessary, I am cer- 
tainly qualified in one respect,” said Mr. Raimund, 
coming in, without ceremony, as of late was much his 
habit, just in time to hear her last words. 

Laide flushed deeply, yet answered brightly 
enough : 

“ I have no doubt you are adorably faulty ; but my 
taste, even in sins, is somewhat bizarre .” 

“Very sadly true,” said Godfrey, gravely, turning 
to his guest with affected commiseration. “ Steal- 
ing a lightning rod, or going fishing for ghosts, are 
the very mildest things that will go down with her.” 

“ How much we all owe to our early associations,” 
Miss Travers said, her eyes agleam with fun. 

“ Natural depravity is still more potent,” said Mr. 
Lane, tranquilly ; “ and I assure you, Mr. Raimund, 
if I had not been pretty well grown before this girl 
became so shocking, I must have been fairly dwarfed 
with anxiety over her bringing up ; and now that I 
contemplate a change in my environment, I offer a 
chromo and both Hebe’s puppies to any man who 
will take her completely off my hands, since one 
woman to look after is more than enough for any 
man who indulges a hope of heaven.” 

“ Would you not better leave off the puppies and 


ENDS m SMOKE. 


227 


advertise for sealed proposals from the lowest bid- 
der?” Laide said, laughing merrily. “The chromo 
will not work at all. I read of a revivalist who of- 
fered one for the first mourner, and the congregation 
retired in disgust.” 

“ That story is purely apochryphal ; one of the 
charming fictions she used, not so long ago, to get 
up for our friend Milkway’s benefit. She ought to be 
labeled ‘ Dangerous,’ like any other quick-sand.” 

“ For all that, I am willing to take her — puppies, 
chromo, and all” — said Mr. Raimund, catching fairly 
their spirit of comedy. 

Godfrey put on an air of preternatural solemnity. 

“ Have you made your will ?” 

“Yes ; but you are not remembered in it.” 

“ No matter. Is your life insured ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Then I withdraw my proposal. A flirt in silk is 
twice a flirt in crape, and as a widow with a hand- 
some paid-up policy, Laide would be certain to set 
half the county by the ears.” 

“ I have not the slightest thought of dying, so 
long as I can avoid it.” 

“ That shows your ignorance. She would torment 
you out of life inside of six months. I never could 
have endured her if I had not grown up with her, 
and so got hardened to it.” 

“ Two can play that game.” 

“ Not when the other side holds four aces.” 

“ I will take the chance of it.” 

“ If it had been possible to keep on hating you, 
how I would rejoice in your recklessness,” 


228 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


“ And if you were compos mentis, I would go to 
Dr. Ellenbrod’s,” Laide said, with the pretense of a 
frown ; then turning to Mr. Raimund, “ Is it not 
pitiful to see a man’s folly develop too late to be 
graceful ?” 

“ Don’t be envious, dear,” said Godfrey, softly. 
“ Though you are near the age when maids begin to 
sing, 

‘ Come deaf, or come blind, or come cripple, 

O ! come ony ane o’ ye a’ ; 

Better be mairied to something , 

Than na’ to be married at a’,’ 

I dare say we shall find you a very personable hus- 
band, if we are not too particular.” 

“Shall I not shoot him for such treason ?” Rai- 
mund asked of Laide, taking an empty pistol from 
the mantel and pointing it fairly at her tormentor’s 
head. 

“No,” she said, shaking her head slowly; “ I can 
wait a little for vengeance, and he is very shortly to 
be married.” 

“ And that’s w r hats the matter,” laughed Godfrey. 
“ Do you know, Raimund, she was on the point of 
proposing outright this morning, but I escaped on 
the plea of pre-emption ?” 

“ I know your happiness makes you fearfully auda- 
cious,” said that gentleman, joining in Laide’s clear 
laugh. 

“ There is no denying that, but you see this girl 
enjoys it,” Godfrey answered, after a minute, putting 
his hands upon his cousin’s shoulders and turning 
her face to their guest ; “ and now the wicked shall 


ENDS IN SMOKE. 


229 


cease from troubling, while we smoke the pipe of 
peace ; so, an it please you, cara viia y give us some 
cigars; not those on the mantel, but the very choicest 
flavors from the depths of my desk.” 

When Laide came with the Havanas, Godfrey’s 
choice was quickly made, but Mr. Raimund put on 
airs of more than connoisseurship. In truth, he was 
but too glad of anything that brought them into 
such proximity, and touched and smelled so tedi- 
ously that she at last grew impatient, and said, 
with dropped eyelids : 

“ You really must make choice ; my hand is tired 
of waiting.” 

“Poor little hand ; I am so sorry. I know to the 
full how bad that is,” he said, almost under his 
breath, bending, as he spoke, to cover it with quick 
kisses ; and was it altogether fancy, or did he really 
feel a tremor of fluttering pulses in those taper 
fingers ? 

After a while she slipped silently away, and very 
briefly thereafter the den’s ceiling was hidden by 
clouds of fragrant fire-lit murk, whereon the smokers 
painted dreams and visions, each according to his 
fancy. 

At last Mr. Raimund roused himself to say : 

“ Do you not think, Godfrey, I may at last begin 
to cherish the shadow of a hope ?” 

f* I can’t say certainly,” answered that gentle- 
man, pouring out a meditative cloud. “ Beyond a 
doubt ‘ rum creeters is wimmen,’ and the more I find 
out about them, the less I know. Laide is honest 
with herself, and always knows her own mind ; but 


230 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


all of us change sometimes, and if anybody can win 
on the homestretch, you are unquestionably the man, 
and I believe I’d risk three figures on your doing it.” 

“ Thank you,” said Raimund, puffing out a partic- 
ularly large cloud, “ I shall win or else die trying to 
do it. I am not abnormally humble in estimating 
myself, yet really, in the light of pure reason, my 
hopes seem as vaporous and unsubstantial as the 
smoke of our cigars.” 

“Likewise as comforting?” Godfrey asked, shut- 
ting one eye. and pretending to make blue vapor rings 
come out of the other. 

For answer Raimund only lit a fresh weed. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


“ALL IS LOST BUT HONOR.” 

SOME fifteen months after, Mr. Lane and Miss 
Travers were again face to face in his den. Outside, 
March sunshine fell warm upon springing wheat, 
March winds tossed the peach orchard into waves of 
pink blossom. Inside, sweetness and light were al- 
most equally apparent. A bowl of white lilac and 
scarlet tulips crowned Godfrey’s big, old-fashioned 
secretary ; a pretty, low sewing-chair and beribboned 
work-basket stood just at the elbow of his huge 
rocker ; there were new soft cushions and a pretty 
rug upon the sofa ; a guitar in one corner, and in the 
place of honor over the mantel a large tinted photo- 
graph of Eastbrook’s new mistress. 

Mrs. Lura Evelyn Lane was certainly fair to see. 
No wonder her husband gave loving looks at her pict- 
ure each five minutes or so. Miss Travers watched 
him for some time in silent contentment, then said, 
drawing down the corners of her mouth, as though 
highly aggrieved : 

“ Godfrey, can you spare me five minutes from the 
contemplation of your happiness ? — otherwise your 
wife ? ” 

“ Perhaps, — by putting a severe strain on myself,” 
Mr. Lane said, looking over to his cousin with all his 
old, honest love in his eyes. 

She leaned back in her low chair, pushed her feet 

( 231 ) 


232 


THE HOMESTRETCH . 


as far out as was possible, and fixing her eyes on her 
slippers, said : 

“ Of course you have forgotten all about it — but I 
will be thirty years old to-morrow.” 

“ What makes you think I have forgotten it ? ” 

“ O ! dear ! what a question ! As if you had been in 
a hundred feet of any mere earthly fact these ten days 
since that wonderful baby came. It was bad enough 
before ; you and Lura were unfeelingly happy, consid- 
ering that a lone, lorn spinster had to be a looker-on. 
Now, it will be simply beyond bearing. You must find 
some way to get rid of me or I shall die of envy.” 

“ Can’t possibly spare you until Master Travers 
Lane is safely christened. You are to be godmother, 
you know.” 

“ Not if I know myself. The two things in the 
world I am most afraid to handle are flour dough and 
a young baby. I couldn’t make a decent batch of 
biscuit if life depended on it, and it fills me with awe 
to see Lura’s pretty ways with that infinitesimal bit 
of humanity ; the minute I get hold of it, it always 
threatens to drop out of its clothes.” 

“ That’s a fact. As a nurse I don’t think even I 
could recommend you,” Mr. Lane said, laughing, 
“ but my boy’s godmother you must be. We will 
rehearse the ceremony as they do weddings.” 

“ That reminds me — you are very neglectful of my 
prospects. You have not once told me it was high 
time I was married.” 

“ I got tired of telling you that years ago.” 

“ Really — I’m not quite a mummy from the pyra- 
mids nor a pre- Adamite relic. Anyway, I’m years 


“ALL IS LOST BUT HONOR. 


238 


and years younger than you are, and you should begin 
looking about to get me properly settled in life.” 

Godfrey laughed uproariously. After a minute he 
put on a reflective air and said : 

“ Well ! let’s see. I have no especial grudge against 
any marriageable male person, so must decide impar- 
tially. What manner of man will suit you ? A dark 
one?” 

Laide shook her head. 

“ H — m — m, — a short one ? ” 

Another negative. 

“A bachelor ? ” 

Still another shake of the head. 

“ Fair — tall — a widower? ” Mr. Lane repeated med- 
itatively, while Laide’s cheeks took on a pink flush. 
“ Fritz Raimund is just that sort — but of course he is 
out of the question.” 

Laide’s cheeks grew redder still. Mr. Lane went 
on as though he did not see them. 

“ Quite out of the question, as I know it has be- 
come chronic with you to refuse him.” 

Laide put her hands over her eyes and said very low : 

“ Yes — it has become chronic — and — and — /can’t 
change it. You know I promised myself never to 
accept him.” 

“ Do you want to break the promise?” 

“No” — dropping her head lower than before; 
“ but — but — seeing you and Lura — has — has — made 
me — want to — marry him.” 

“ Hurrah ! ” cried Godfrey, jumping up to give her 
a hearty hug. “ My precious old girl. I hope you 
may be as happy as I am. When did you bring 


234 THE HOMESTRETCH. 

yourself to that exceedingly sensible frame of mind ? 
I suppose you will accept him as a birthday gift.” 

“ I told you — I could not do that,” Laide said, not 
raising her head. 

Godfrey fell back aghast. 

“ See here, Laide,” he said imperatively, “ you 
surely can’t mean to let any foolish idea of keeping 
faith with yourself stand betwixt you and happiness ? 
I gave you credit for more sense.” 

Miss Travers seemed to get the better of her em- 
barrassment at once. Rising, she gave his ear a dainty 
fillip, and said airily : 

“ My dear old stupid, must I ask you outright to 
go and offer me to — to Mr. Raimund ? ” 

It was a full minute before Godfrey could speak. 
When at last he found voice, he said : 

“ No — I will not go — but he’s to be here in half an 
hour, and I will let him know how the wind sits to- 
day. If he does not die of astonishment, you will 
probably get an answer before night — though I shall 
beg him to take at least a week to decide the mo- 
mentous question.” 

“ I hope he’ll take a month,” Laide said, running 
toward the door. “ In fact, you must say that I don’t 
want an answer until after the christening. You know 
I will have to ‘ give my whole mind ’ to that for the 
next six weeks.” 

“ Confess now, Laide,” Godfrey said, walking after 
her. “You have cared for him always in spite of 
everything? I have been sure of it for a year past. 
You made a fetich of your pledge to yourself, and I 
feared would sacrifice your happiness to it. How do 


“ ALL IS LOST BUT HONOR. 


235 


you feel, little woman, now that you have got around 
the idol without breaking it ? ” 

“ Why, that ‘ all is lost but honor ’ — and well lost 
for love/’ Miss Travers said, flashing past him into 
the hall and up the wide stairs. Through the open 
door she had caught a glimpse of Fritz Raimund, 
galloping up the drive. Just then, neither her nerves 
nor herself was in case to meet him. Going on to 
her own room, she took from a locked cedar trunk 
the gown she had worn at their first meeting. It was 
of fine pale wool, with falls of yellow lace, old-fash- 
ioned, withal quaintly girlish. For thirteen years it 
had been wrapped in linen, laid in lavender, and 
marked in Laide’s clear hand, “ My grave-gown.” 

Now, as she shook out the folds with slow, loving 
touches, more than one big tear dropped down among 
them. She let down her soft hair, and quickly brushed 
it into the simple outgrown fashion of that time, stuck 
a knot of violets behind one ear, put another at her 
belt, then looked at herself, half smiling, half- sighing. 

“ I wore lilies then— lilies of August— lilies of 
youth,” she said to her image ; then went slowly 
down in answer to Godfrey’s impatient calling. 

Raimund awaited her at the stairs’ foot. His arms 
were upheld, his face transfigured. As she reached 
his level, he drew her close, saying, with a half sob : 

“At last, at last, my little girl has come back to 
me.” 

Laide put a timid hand up to his cheek and softly 
whispered : 

“Am I really and truly your lost little girl ?— not 
an old, faded woman, who has usurped her name ? ” 


THE HOMESTRETCH. 


m 

For answer Raimund kissed her again and again, 
then said, still holding her close : 

“ Little darling, I shall not let you go until you 
tell me when you will marry me ! ” 

“ Well ! I think about — to-morrow. I want some 
notice taken of my birthday,” Laide said, slipping 
away from him to face Godfrey, who came up to 
them with moist eyes but laughing lips. 

“ I hope, Mr. Raimund,” he said, holding both 
their hands in his, “ that I got through my mission 
with a proper amount of diplomatic delicacy. I 
haven’t the faintest idea of what I said, but from the 
looks of things hereabout I suppose I made myself 
understood.” 

“ Perfectly,” said Raimund. 

Laide half turned away her head, and said, in pre- 
tended aside : 

“ The fact is, Godfrey dear, you demonstrated per- 
fectly that 4 language is the faculty whereby we con- 
ceal our thoughts ’ — but it did not matter much. 
Mr. Raimund is not stupid — and I think he has felt 
for some time that I had serious intentions.” 

“ Ef youalls wants ter see dis yere chile, he des 
done wake up, an’ ye better come on,” Mammy Paul- 
ine called from the upper hall. 

Everybody went up-stairs. Before they came down 
both the wedding and the christening were duly ap- 
pointed for that day month. 


THE END. 


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